In Hell as it is in Heaven
by kedrann
Summary: Some people don't like rules. Others are expert at changing them when they don't suit them. Thanks to the meddling of an old cosmic entity, Joyce Summers was about to become very familiar with someone from the latter category.
1. Setting Up the Stage

_**Author notes:**__ This story happens in the same multiverse as another story of mine I posted on TTH and called the __Traveller Chronicles. It __can be read separately. If you haven't read that story, all you will miss are some of the references a common character makes in the prologue, but that's all. _

_It will link together (at least initially, other crossovers will develop in later chapters) two mangas with a similar theme to the Buffyverse. One of them is well-known in fanction, the other less. It was a relatively short series (only 5 volumes). This story will use Halloween to induce changes then focus on the aftermath._

_For this story, the timeline of BtVS has been moved so that the Halloween episode happens in 2011. I also considered that Dawn is already here and fourteen years old. _

_**Summary**_

_YAHF: Some people don't like rules. Others are expert at changing them when they don't suit them. Thanks to the meddling of an old cosmic entity, Joyce Summers was about to become very familiar with someone from the latter category. _

_**Disclaimer**_

_Rating: FR 18  
_

_Fandoms I don't own anything of_

- _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_

- _Ah! My Goddess!_

- _Stray Little Devil_

- _Tenchi Muyo__ (Only used in prologue)_

_- __Noir_

_- Space-time coordinates: unknown -_

Somewhere in a higher plane of existence, the being known as Lady Tokimi was enjoying a moment of rest and was busy reading. Some may have expected some kind of arcane book delving on the mysteries of the universe but the truth was that the loudly colored booklet she was holding was more mundane.

It was one of her servants that had brought her attention on comic books. In particular, she liked the concept of a series called 'What if' as it was something she herself did, meddling in one timeline or another and comparing how it deviated from the untouched one or from a different set of alterations.

Her recent experiment had shown some results, but it was now mostly in her elder sister's hands. At least, it had allowed her to identify her sister's main avatar. What was more interesting to her was the information regarding her daughter.

Her daughter had started as a mindless anomaly, just a kind of quiet bug in the structure of the multiverse that she had introduced to test a theory. It had now grown to become an intrinsic part of the system, coterminous to every point in space-time. As it used human girls as avatars in every timeline that species existed, Tokimi had come to consider the being sometimes called the Key of Dagon as her daughter.

The version of her daughter present in the timeline of her most recent experiment was now raised by her elder sister's avatar. There were many others… some died, others lived. It mattered to Tokimi… but only so much. After all, a human did not cry because one of the cells of his body died and, as a whole, her daughter would live till the end of times.

Closing her comic issue, she wondered if she should meddle once again. The timelines having a Sunnydale had proven to be worthy of her attention and she was curious to retry her Halloween experiment with different parameters.

She extended her awareness, finding a universe matching her desire. It was a little shifted on the time axis. The Halloween she needed would be in 2011 instead of 1997. This would even make some things easier. Some prophecies in that world were supposed to realize at the end of October 2011. She smiled as she saw that the prophecies had been done by seers feeling her own manipulations.

This would require less extreme temporal alterations than her previous experiment. All she needed to do was to make sure some items were in the right hands for Halloween. Three of the beings she intended to use could detect and object to her manipulations but… no, they would probably play along.

Lady Tokimi snapped her fingers.

_- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, Sunday 30 October 2011 15:11 -_

Joyce Summers was humming as she unpacked some things she had brought back from Los Angeles. Originally, her scouting and acquisition trip should have taken several days but as she walked to a place she wanted to check, a quaint little shop had taken her eyes. Called 'Enuma Elish', it was mostly an antique shop but some of the pieces in the showcase had attired her attention.

Discussing with the owner – an old man called Remy – she had learnt that he was helping some artist friends by displaying and selling their pieces. Joyce had seen many copies of antiques but those were not such. They were original art using the style and techniques of ancient civilizations. There were sculptures, painting as well as recreations of jewelry of those civilizations. They had quickly come to a deal and she had scheduled a showing for those pieces.

_And I'm even back for Halloween…_

The man had also given her a small crate of items as a gift; things that Remy said 'had gathered dust for too long in his shop'. She went through them. Most were pieces of jewelry and maybe some early works of the artists she would present in her gallery.

_Nice bracelet… looks like Norse runes… and it seems to suit me. _

She would see with her daughters if something interested them, maybe something to go with their Halloween costume.

_- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, Monday 31 October 2011, 17:46 -_

Joyce looked as her youngest daughter went down the stairs. Since she had come join them in Sunnydale last summer, Joyce had the 'pleasure' to discover that Dawn was living her rebellious phase in a gothic way, something that made Buffy cringe. For Halloween, that meant something like a satanic version of a catholic schoolgirl uniform, all in black velvet and white lace, with a pair of horns coming out of her jet-black hair. She had to admit that her daughter was cute in that outfit and that it was tame enough. She didn't want to think too much about her little Dawn starting to turn boys' heads.

"Hmm… I may have something that will go with that costume," she said, remembering the items in the gift crate.

She quickly found the case she was looking for and took out a small pendant, a simple oval red stone rimmed with golden metal and adorned with two little bat wings. The stone reflected light in a way that made it look like an eye with a cat-like pupil. It was simple yet… the stone had a peculiar way to reflect light, as if it had unsuspected depths.

Dawn smiled. The pendant looked cool and it was something she would also be able to wear on ordinary days. She looked into the depths of the stone and she really liked how the light played on it.

"Thank you mom, that's really cool," she said while hugging her mother.

The door rang and Dawn rushed to the door, revealing two other teenage girls dressed in a devilish theme. Joyce recognized Dawn's best friends Kit Holburn and Amanda Ditchik. The energetic Kit was a bit of a troublemaker from what she had learnt. Her normally brunette hair was dyed blonde and arranged in a kind of wild, short mane that made Joyce think that she spent too much time playing with electricity. Her skintight outfit was not something she would have liked to see on her daughter – or maybe only on a beach – but she had to admit that it looked good on Kit. The shy Amanda had gone for voluminous robes that, combined with her usual composure and kind smile, gave her an air of benevolent wisdom. Even the little ram horns on both side of her head… they just added to the impression.

_It's missing something. Kit's horns don't look right with her haircut and Amanda… let's see if I have something. After all… _thought Joyce as she looked through the remainder of the crate's items, _I gave one to Willow and Xander too. _

Smiling, she took two items that would go nicely. One was a circlet with a silvery, lightning bolt-shaped horn that came on the brow, the other a golden, hexagram-shaped amulet. She gave them to the girls who cheerfully donned the items. She waved them goodbye and finished her own preparations

_- Ethan's, Sunnydale, Monday 31 October 2011, 18:25 -_

In a costume shop that had sold most of his stock, the owner, an Englishman called Ethan Rayne was busy putting the last touches to his spell. Soon, the Chaos magic would be unleashed on the town, finding every article that he sold and turning everyone wearing them into their costume. Seeing the Slayer being turned into a defenseless noblewoman for a night would be… really fun.

He pronounced the last words of the spell.

_- The streets of Sunnydale, Monday 31 October 2011, 18:28 -_

The Chaos magic traveled, finding its targets. It soon hit a group of three teenage girls and tried to turn them into the she-devils they were dressed as. Suddenly, the spell hiccupped as it hit a little gold pendant with bat wings. Red light flared, bathing Dawn Summers and arcing in crimson bolts to her two friends, locking on a circlet and an amulet.

The change the Chaos spell had tried to bring was happening, but with an order dictated by the amulet's crimson light. What would have been a superficial, temporary change became stark reality. Horns and tails became real as the girls' biology was rewritten.

"Ew…" said 'Kit'. "Anybody has an idea of what we're doing here?"

"No idea, Raim," said 'Dawn'. "Given that the Tupsimati is radiating magic like mad," she said while holding her pendant, "Remy's probably behind it. Vine, are you all right?"

"Give me a minute, Pam," said 'Amanda'. "We're possessing people… humans I would say."

"That explains Pam's new haircut… nice hime-cut by the way… Let's split up and try to find if someone else from Deamonea is here," suggested Raim. "With a little luck, Vine's grandfather will be here."

Pam nodded. Her friend's grandfather, Malphas, was the President of the Devil Council and an expert on many magics. She had herself loads of raw power thanks to being the current depositary of the Tupsimati as well as Marduk's granddaughter, but she was still a devil-in-training.

The three girls' wings materialized and they soared in the sky.

_- Elsewhere, almost at the same time -_

Joyce woke up, feeling warmth and a faint brimstone scent. She was in a library and a statuesque, tanned woman with a long mane of white hair and a barely decent purple and black dress was busy going through the books.

"Finally awake…"

The woman turned to look at her. Joyce noticed the six-pointed star on her brow and her purple eyes. She had never seen eyes like those, eyes that seemed to pierce through her very soul and told of unbound pride. Yet… there was also sadness in this gaze, loss and grief.

"Where… where am I and who are you?"

"You're still 'sleeping' and this library is a mindscape you created to host our encounter. Classical, but fitting. The books are allegories for your memories. As for me… I am Hild. I am sharing your head tonight."

She was about to say something about living some strange dream when Hild raised her hand.

"No, you're not mad or hurt… at least not yet," said Hild. "There is magic at work, coming for a very high level… higher than mine as I was suckered into it just as you were… As I suppose my ex-husband is here too, that doesn't leave many suspects."

"Many suspects?"

"Well… there aren't that many people higher than me. The kind of beings I'm thinking about is usually fond of nicknames like 'the Alpha and the Omega'. While I have my doubts on exactly who, it's of little interest right now. What's important is how we deal with the present situation… after going through some of your memories, I think you and I can make a deal."

"What kind of angel makes a de… you're Lucifer."

"Lucifer is actually one of my errand boys so let's say you got it half right. You should listen to my offer, though."

"And its price, of course."

Hild laughed.

"Cunning! I knew there was some spirit under that boring guise you show to the world, Joy-chan. I think you will do nicely for the job I want to offer you."

"Becoming your 'errand girl'?"

"No. This is not my world. It's yours. I have taken a little look at it and it happens that I already heard about your world from some… acquaintances to which I had to explain rather forcefully that I would not tolerate them opening a branch on my world. So, I think that your world's current custodians are doing a poor job and I propose you to stage a little revolution."

"I remember something from a discussion I had with Rabbi Rosenberg… Depending on the tradition, the Devil is not a rebel but tempting humanity on God's orders."

"Again… half right. We don't really have time for a philosophy course, so I will get straight to the point. I had a little look at your life and… it sucks big time."

"Apart from being in a dream with the Devil…"

"You have spent a lot of time wondering if Buffy did get into fights… she is, but not how you think. I took the liberty to give… a new lighting on some of your memories," said Hild while giving her a book.

Joyce took the book warily, remembering who she was dealing with. Memories rushed in her mind. They were familiar but… seen from a different viewpoint. She remembered the fights in Hemery, culminating with Buffy burning down the gym but now noticed a lot of small details that had eluded her until now. It was more of the same about the last year in Sunnydale, all the little things she had not seen.

_Or rather did not want to see… the attack by that monster disguised as a catholic schoolgirl should have tipped me. _

Tears ran down her cheeks as she remembered Buffy's look while she left for that ball, as if it was the last time she would see her. The final scene of the memories was from the Jeremy Brett version of Sherlock Holmes, the Great Detective saying his famous line about what was left when the impossible was eliminated.

"Magic is real," she said while the bitter conclusion hit her like a slap to her face. "Vampires are real and my daughter is fighting them."

"You know, I understand," said Hild. "I'm a mother too and my relations with my daughter are certainly not the best. Contrarily to me, though, you didn't alienate her yet and my offer will allow you to change things for her, to help. As for the price… my job is not always easy and you will have to learn to punish."

Joyce wondered if she was forfeiting her soul, if she… no. She felt again that certitude that it was just meant to be, that the other path had been tried and only led to death and misery.

"Where do I sign?"

_- The streets of Sunnydale, Monday 31 October 2011, 19:04 -_

"And what do you intend to do, little girl?" asked the vampire.

Willow cursed her current ghostly state. When the madness began, she had left her body behind because of the ghost sheet she had been wearing to cover the far too revealing costume Buffy made her wear. She had seen Dawn as she was on her way to the library, hoping to warn Giles about all this. The problem was that Buffy's little sister, or rather whoever she had dressed up as that night, was busy facing some guy turned into Dracula by his costume and leading a group of 'regular' vampires.

Suddenly, a red aura flared around the fourteen-year old girl and a dark shape looking like a black tornado escaped her pendant.

"My name is Zu," said a deep voice as a feral, tanned teenage boy materialized in the eye of the tornado. "The lion-headed eagle, the wild king of darkness, master of storm, Anzu. I answer the call of my mistress."

Willow blinked, hard. It was not only because the boy that had just appeared was… well, yummy. Her main problem was that she had read enough Sumerian and Babylonian prophecies lately to know the name Zu. It appeared in a myth were he stole the Tupsimati, the Tablet of Destinies, and usurped the throne of the gods before being killed by the other gods, the identity of his slayer depending on the version of the myth.

_And such a powerful demon is calling Dawn's costume 'my mistress'… _

The boy had a smile that Willow had sometimes seen on Buffy when she was enjoying Slaying just a little too much. A mini-tornado formed into his hand and swept the vampires in the sky while he clawed toward them. The Dracula clone would probably survive if he managed to turn into a bat. She doubted that the regular vampires would like falling from several hundred meters very much.

She was about to say something when she was interrupted by the sound of clapping. Willow turned to see Buffy's mother except that… it wasn't her, not with that tan, white hair, a dress the teen would have blushed to wear in the privacy of her bedroom and, more than all, a star-shaped mark on her brow. The girl-turned-ghost froze and started to shake with terror. She knew that mark. She knew the manga it came from and who was wearing it: Hild, the Daimakaicho, the ruler of Hell in the story called 'Ah! My Goddess!'.

She listened as Joyce-turned-Hild spoke in Japanese with the devil Dawn, Zu standing in protection before his mistress. The nodding coming from the teenage demoness as she listened to whatever the Daimakaicho was telling her was not to reassure the ghost.

"… and now," said Hild, switching to English and looking at her, "My little Will-chan, all shaking with fear as she recognized me… What should I do with you?"

"H… Hild-sama, I…"

"Hmm… it seems that your body is still where it fell when you became a ghost… Its lifeforce is fading fast, without your soul to hold it together. For now, you would only awake… dead tired if you allow me that little pun. Later… who knows? Well, thankfully, I can easily arrange that little problem. After all, my host's daughters will need their friends in good shape… then it's decided: I will help you!"

To other people who didn't know who she was, Hild's smile may have looked kind, maybe a little playful. Willow was currently too terrified to think about anything. When the hands of the Daimakaicho held her incorporeal body, she passed out.

_- Kingman's Bluff, Sunnydale, Monday 31 October 2011, 19:15 -_

He was looking at the Chaos in town, wondering how he could act without disrupting this world's cosmic rules. Suddenly dark flames erupted from the ground, coalescing in the shape of a woman. The body wasn't familiar to him, though it was to his host. The soul now… he knew her all too well.

"I should have known… How much of this is your work?"

"Actually… I didn't create the situation, but I fixed some isolated cases. I suppose you're looking for a way to put things back in order as a whole?"

"Yes."

"You know that the only way for both of us to be whisked away against our will…"

"Yes, I know… probably the youngest of the Three, she is fond of the 'let's put things in the cauldron to see what happens' approach. Do you have an idea about her goal?"

"Actually, yes. Have you looked in your host's memories? My own doesn't have much knowledge on what truly happens, but it was enough to pique my curiosity."

"One 'quality' that you have in spades… Very well."

The man concentrated to access the memories of the human he was possessing. The woman looked with an amused smile at his expression, going from shock to outrage while he sifted through them.

"I suppose that you have, as usual, a plan?" he asked.

"Of course. We help our hosts to stage a coup by leaving them with enough power to become… us."

"The man I am possessing is… well maybe he can redeem himself."

"Says the man who was ready to kill our daughter because she made a little slip."

"You call activating Fenris a little slip? Belldandy interfered anyway. And once we, or rather they, have taken over?"

"It's up to them. We'll just set up the stage."

"Yggdrasil and Nidhogg do not exist here… but our hosts can create them to regulate things once we are done. We will have to petition this world for sovereignty."

"You can take care of that. Just don't forget to call on me in the final steps as this world wants balance. In the meantime, I will use the chaos spell to divide the town's population between us."

_- Ethan's, Sunnydale, Monday 31 October 2011, 19:21 -_

Ethan Rayne heard the front door opening. He had little fear of the glorious chaos in town spilling in his shop. The wards he had raised around his house were tailored to let only one man pass.

_You've been quick, Giles…_

He looked in the shop part of the house and saw a small form perusing the remaining costumes.

_A girl? How…_

He went in the shop. She was now nearing the place where the statue of Janus was still focusing the spell.

"You can get out, you know," said the girl.

He looked better at her, at her gothic clothes, tanned skin and bleached blonde hair. Something was wrong, really wrong.

"You know, you're lucky that I'm mostly occupied with other tasks and so… Janus… I should have known," she said, pointing the statue.

"Who are you… you look a little like the Slayer's mother but…"

"As I said, I'm mostly occupied with other things," she replied, as if she was undecided between being annoyed and amused. "So, I have sent but a fraction of me here. Now…"

She made a gesture and a second magic circle appeared on the floor, outside his own.

He started to cast one of his fast attack spells but was cut by a negligent flicker of her hand in his direction. The pain hit him like a truck. When he recovered enough reason to be a little coherent, he saw her, smiling and crouching beside him.

"For your information, I activated simultaneously every pain receptor in your body, while protecting you from consequences like a heart failure… Next time you're rude, I may forget the protection part…"

"Lord have mercy…"

"Sorry, but my ex-husband is a little too occupied to hear you right now. Now, be quiet. I have to supercharge your nice spell with the Hellmouth's energy."

"Why?"

"A second, dear…"

She got back to the circle and started to chant. Her voice was magnificent, sultry, like the essence of temptation.

_That language… Enochian? Could she be…_

"Here! Now for your explanations, as I am in a rather good mood… Your spell was a nice idea, but, like most pranksters, you are lacking ambition. Thank my ex-husband, I am not so limited. While you sow Chaos for one night, I see further, I see Chaos as the mean to change the rules. You can be reassured though, I know better than to try to destroy the Earth, contrarily to the idiotic demons that seem to regularly aim for this place. Where would I spend my vacations? You can't imagine what a few weeks of R&R in the Caribbean can do for someone in my position… but I digress."

"What have you done?"

"Your spell is charging and will soon have enough energy to affect everyone in town. As I said, I am not aiming for some temporary, unstable prank. No, Chaos is a tool for me, the hoe that allows me to sow the seeds of revolution. Now…"

She got up and looked through his unsold costumes, finally taking a tiara with cat ears. As she came back to him, a sadistic smile on her lips, Ethan tried to move, but his muscles were still tetanized by her attack. He started to shake as she put the tiara on his head.

"You see, I can't have you running unchecked and I know I can't trust you to serve me faithfully. However, you may still be useful later, so I won't kill you. By the way... do you like tuna?"

"Who… who are you?"

He felt pain washing again as his body warped and shrunk.

"I am Hild," she said, taking the unconscious tabby cat he now was in her arms.

_- Sunnydale airspace, Monday 31 October 2011, 19:28 -_

Above the town, the devil trainee known as Pam Akumachi felt the power stirring under her.

_I hope that Vine's grandfather is right to trust this Hild woman. Let's get to work! _

She accessed her power, delving deep in the Tupsimati. It was harder here as this wasn't the world the Tablet of Destinies gave her dominion over, but Zu, her familiar demon, was currently in the gem and helped her to channel the chaos magic.

Hild had told her that she was necessary because the Tupsimati commanded to Heavenly, Infernal and Natural energies and she would be able to transmute the chaotic energy into something more diverse. All she had to do was to provide the transformation. Hild's spell would do the rest.

_I hope… I know why but still, it's a mean of us to force that on the people of that town. _

A few years ago, she had been a simple Japanese schoolgirl… or so she thought. She had then attributed her dark red hair to some Ainu ancestor. Sure, her grandmother had often told her stories about how she met a nice devil but they were just stories, right? Reality hit her the day she used her grandmother's notes to draw a magic circle. The circle suckered her and her best friend Rinka into another world.

There, Pam had to cope with being changed into a devil. She made new friends who helped her a lot: the energetic Raim and the smart Vine. As she learnt more about this world's history, she understood that her grandmother had already come to that world but that a few decades on Earth had translated as millennia in Deamonea. She had suddenly found herself to be the heir of Marduk, the legendary Devil King.

_But I coped… I learnt to like that life and I wouldn't change it. But I was already a quarter devil… thanks to grandma falling in love with Marduk. It's different for them. _

"Can you tell me, Dawn, what you would do in my place?" she said, remembering the name on the bus pass in her pocket.

_Do it, _said a voice in the back of her mind. _Our world… you don't know how rotten it is. I've seen it. I've seen my sister fight and die a little more every night. As a devil, I would have the strength to help her. We would all have the strength to fight back!_

Pam felt her power surge even further. There was something special about Dawn. It was… like watching the night sky and marveling at the immensity of space. It was like if she was that astronaut in that strange American movie she had seen once, wanting to say: "My God, it's full of stars!"

Pam felt the rush as the infernal power of the Hellmouth bathed her. A human soul would have been destroyed, corrupted to the core in mere seconds but it recognized her as a demon, feeling Marduk's power in her and… yielding obediently to whatever Dawn was. Opalescent bubbles started to appear around her, forming a complex lattice in the sky.

Soon, blue and red sparkles started to rain upon the town, looking for people to convert.

_- A warehouse in Sunnydale, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 07:15 -_

The following morning, Drusilla tentatively put her finger in the sunray, expecting the familiar burn to come. She felt nothing, not this time. Gathering her resolve, she stepped forward, letting the warm rays of the rising sun bathe her.

She started to cry. It felt so good, like if she was awakening from a long nightmare. She took the hand mirror and looked at her reflection, marveling at the sight of her own face, a face she had not seen for more than a century. She put her hand on heart, feeling her body's warmth and the rapid thump of her heart.

_Alive… alive again. Alive and not merely undead. _

She remembered the being that had shared her head the night before, when the blue sparkles rained upon her. The stars had told her to stand in the rain. They had told her that she would heal if she did so. She had needed it so much after those people almost killed her in Prague.

_Well… maybe I deserved it… I wasn't very nice then. _

The demon in her had tried to fight the cleansing effect of the blue light, but it had soon felt the invading spirit's goodness infect it and, then, a miracle happened. The demon had shattered and the one possessing her had held her sobbing, reborn soul during the night. She had comforted her, offering her understanding and forgiveness as blue marks were etched on the former vampire's brow and cheeks.

"Thank you, Belldandy."

She heard someone crashing on the couch. It was probably her Spike coming back. Well, she would have to make him admit that some things had changed. She smiled as she saw his own face, adorned with marks similar to her own, but red.

"You look like you could use a good bath, love."

"Tell me about it… I was about to kill the Slayer when there was that red light… the next thing I remember is awakening completely singed under rubble. I think the Slayer said something about being first category unlimited…"

"It's all right, I will make some tea."

Spike looked at the woman of his life as she busied herself in their lair's kitchen. Now that he thought about it, their lair didn't have a kitchen yesterday… nor did it look like a loft with an… unfinished but already very comfy look. All it was missing was some art to fill in some empty spaces.

_Why did Dru make those blue marks on her face and… _

He felt warm as he saw her kind smile, while she came back with heavenly smelling tea and biscuits.

_- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 07:22 -_

Buffy woke up, trying to remember what happened the night before.

_Hell of a hangover… what did I drink? _

She got up sluggishly and went to the bathroom, hoping that her little sister wouldn't be up for now. She reached the shower and felt with delight the hot water run on her skin, chasing the fog away.

_But still no clue… let's see… I remember going out wearing that frilly dress, plus that necklace Mom had from her Los Angeles trip. We moved to the school and started to escort the little monsters, thankfully not seeing Dawn who had the 'good' taste to dress as some kind of imp. After that… nothing, the great white hole. _

She went to the mirror to brush her hair and immediately noticed two things. One may have wondered at her sense of priorities, but she first noticed that her hair had curls they didn't have the day before and was… more blonde, as in natural, golden blonde instead of dyed. The second thing she noticed were the red tattoos on her face, two sickle-shaped ones on her brow and two pairs of triangles at the corner of her eyes. She started to shake, wondering if someone had cursed her.

Suddenly, as if responding to her thoughts on curses she… kind of remembered. In her mind's eye, she saw something that reminded her of computer code… No, she was, somehow, sure it was computer code. What she hadn't a clue about was on what this 'software' was supposed to run.

She had to see Giles. She hurried to her room and dressed up. As she got down to the kitchen, she heard her mother talking with someone about planning lessons and a strange voice answering her. She rushed into the kitchen and stopped. In front of her mother, a cup of coffee set before… it, were the strangest demon she had ever seen and… probably a demonic cat.

The demon was a lion's head with five goat legs radiating from it. The cat was unusual too, black with strangely angular emerald stripes. The worse was that they… didn't feel evil.

"Ah… Buffy, nice to see you awake," said Joyce. "Please meet Buer and Sitri," she said as first the lion-head demon then the cat bowed slightly. "You will probably see them in school soon, after I have… discussed some things with your principal."

It was then that Buffy noticed the red star on her mother's brow.


	2. Realizing

_Author notes: __as often for my fics, I am extrapolating and deepening the background of the series I use, sometimes voluntarily disregarding a part of canon to obtain a smoother merging. One thing I disregarded in the AMG canon is the whole 'interspecies romance issue' (appears late in the manga and in the OAV). It is not that the idea is bad but it didn't fit with how I saw things for this story. _  


**_ 9:_**_thank you for the review. This chapter will answer your question about what happened to Xander_

_I hope you will enjoy this new chapter._

_- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 07:28 -_

"Mom?" asked Buffy, her eyes pleading for it to be a nightmare.

"I suppose you're wondering about this," said Joyce, pointing the star on her brow. "I will see you both at the meeting," she added, nodding towards the demon and the cat.

"Of course, Your Majesty," said the cat, bowing slightly.

The two creatures exited the house by the kitchen's door, the demon's legs rotating like a wheel around its head.

"Your Majesty?" asked Buffy who thought the theme of the Twilight Zone should soon start to play in the background…

"Can you sit down? I will explain but it's still a school day and you need your breakfast. Pancakes?"

She wasn't sure she wanted to eat anything but her stomach growled, probably in response to the delicious smell coming from the pancakes pile her mother had set up just in front of her.

"Mom… this…"

"Buer is a very nice person, you know. He is a very skilled physician both in mundane and magical healing. Sitri is more oriented towards… relationships but… well he's still a cat for some things. "

"They're demons!"

"Can you define 'demon', dear?"

She wanted to say some generality like evil and non-human but she knew it wasn't true, that she had already met exceptions. Angel was special because of his soul curse but she had also met demons like Clem who were… just people, no better or worse than humans.

"Demons are… most of them are evil, Mom."

"We will have to discuss on good and evil soon, Buffy, but not now. I would say that most 'good' demons stay as far away as they can from Sunnydale. This place attracts… demons with a certain mindset, like that 'catholic schoolgirl' from last year. A pity that she is already dead… I would have enjoyed destroying her myself."

Buffy shuddered. There was something in the tone of her mother that she had already heard, in her own voice, years ago, before the Slayer forced her to reconsider her values. It had been when she had been Hemery High's Queen Bee and she spoke about 'losers' like if they were barely worthy to be scraped from under her shoes.

_But Mom is saying that about Darla, the master vampire that turned Angel… yet… why do I have the feeling that she could pulverize the Master with a snap of her fingers?_

She could feel it, coming from that same part of her mind that had her compare curses to computer programs. She had known someone wearing the same six-pointed star on her brow, someone whose power made the vampire lord known as the Master look insignificant. This person with the star on her brow… she was someone that 'alien' part of her both feared and revered.

"Eat your pancakes, dear," said Joyce. "Most of the demons you encountered so far had values that are incompatible with those of humans. In many ways, this city was a jungle in which humans were kept oblivious to the fact they were prey."

Joyce sat and took a sip of her coffee. To Buffy, this was another proof of the changes her mother had gone through. She was not drinking from her usual mug, but from a small espresso cup.

"The situation with demons", continued Joyce, "is in many ways similar to the impression one may have about a foreign country. You focus on the acts on some jerks instead of seeing the whole. The fact the sources you may access on them are also often biased, because they were written by people who mostly wanted to record how to destroy them, only reinforces the thing. That's how we end up with simplifications like 'all demons are evil'."

Buffy started to eat, preferring to allow the food to take her mind at least partly away from the fact her mother seemed to know an awful lot about the supernatural.

"How do you know that?"

"This brings us to what happened last night. I suppose that you remember buying that dress in a costume shop called Ethan's, starting your trick-or-treating tour and little else until you awoke here?"

She nodded warily.

"Ethan Rayne is… or rather was a Chaos sorcerer. His idea of a fun joke was to bewitch all the costumes he sold. When he activated them last night, all those who were wearing them transformed into their costumes. From what I was told, you turned into a caricature of an eighteenth century noblewoman. As for me…"

"You had no costume last night, at least nothing bought at Ethan's."

"Correct but Ethan himself was played by… let's say the powers he invoked to keep things simple. You remember the crate of items I brought back from LA? Some of them were bewitched too, though a little differently. Each of them was keyed to a specific person and used Ethan's spell to trigger a different transformation. Because of the bracelet I was wearing, I became Hild for a night."

"Who's this Hild and am I still speaking to her?"

"As for who, Hild is fictional in this universe. I think that Willow has the comic book were she appears. I don't think it got everything right but it's something that you can check later if you're interested. What's important is that Hild is, in her universe, the Queen of Hell. Last night, she forced me to look at my – and your – life with the eyes of truth. Among other things, she made me realize what the catholic schoolgirl or the Billy Idol wannabe I chased during the parents-teachers night are: vampires. She told me about the Slayer, the Watchers and the rest. Then… we made a deal."

Buffy choked on the sip of orange juice she was drinking. Since her mother had started to speak, she had remembered some glimpses of last night, when she was acting as the 'noblewoman' so she could believe the costume part. She could even admit that her mother had turned into some kind of demon for a night and kept some knowledge out of it. She remembered the problems Xander had with that hyena spirit possession the year before.

"Mom… dealing with demons is… bad, major bad."

"Buffy, do you really think I could stay idle now that I know how you risk your life night after night? Do you really think I could stand the thought of all those young girls sacrificed for a system on the perpetual brink of apocalypse? No. Hild offered me a chance to fight back, to give you a better future than to fall in a nameless battle, forgotten as another girl replaces you."

Buffy lowered her eyes, feeling tears run down her cheeks. She understood her mother's logic. She hated it but she understood it. But now… would her mother end up like Catherine Madison, the wicked witch they defeated a year ago?

_I… I don't think I could kill her, kill my own mother. I… I need to know more._

"What's the catch? There is always a catch…" she said, barely holding back her sobs.

"There is one. Hild changed me. You would maybe say that I am eviler than I was yesterday. My love for you didn't change, but the understanding I have now of… your world… I will kill without hesitation if I have to, just as the cheerleader you were in Hemery learnt to."

"Even humans?"

"I don't care about species or race. I care about threats to my people and I will deal with them."

Buffy had for half a second the idea to answer something about vigilante justice. Two feelings, coming from two different part of her essence quashed that idea promptly. One came from a familiar part of her. The Slayer didn't ask for authorization. She took matters into her own hands, before it was too late.

Another came as a memory. She was a child and listening to lessons in a strange place with cold, harsh winds. A teacher with red marks on her face that were very similar to her own was speaking in a strange language. She explained how the demons of Niflheim worked and why. The high-and-mighty gods didn't have the guts to dirty their hands and to remove the threats before they could do too much damage. Demons used pacts to set that kind of people on a path of self-destruction.

She looked at her mother, seeing only love for her in her eyes. If she could still love, then it was not as bad as vampires. However, she had also felt the ice in her voice and she had little doubt that her mother would crush her enemies without the slightest guilt.

_No, no guilt… thought about the consequences and how it may disturb her plans certainly, but no guilt. Why does it feel… right?_

She put frantically her hand to her own brow, rubbing her mark. If this mark was a sign of the demon species her mother belonged to now… she was one too and that meant her body had been rewired with demonic instincts.

"No… it can't…" she said, crying.

"Here, it's all right," said Joyce, hugging her sobbing daughter.

She had waited for Buffy to come to that conclusion, to understand that she changed too.

"Last night," she continued, "I – or rather Hild – rewrote the transformation spell. You perhaps remember a shower of red sparkles."

She nodded weakly. She remembered being deadly afraid, cowering before Spike and then… red sparkles and the weak noblewoman being kicked out of her head … by something old, cunning and rather angry, an adult version of the child in that memory.

"I… or she, I don't know anymore, said that she was Mara, Demoness First Class Unlimited… Since when do demons have a license?"

"They do on Hild's world. It's mostly a question of how much power they can access through Nidhogg… a system that doesn't exist yet in this dimension. Buffy, this world needs a change. Rupert told me about the Master and the prophecy where you died. I want a better destiny for you. Now, thanks to Hild, it is something I can do."

"Can't the spell be removed?"

"No, the spell has ended. This is our new reality," said Joyce, smiling gently as she looked in her daughter's eyes. "Ethan has already been punished for his little joke," she added while pointing a basket where a small form was sleeping.

"Mom… you changed him into a cat?"

"Yes, or rather Hild did. He cannot harm like this and I can always un-cat him if needed. Now that I think about it, I should rather call him Ethel as… well, she's female too."

Buffy did her best to keep her poker face. She had to speak to Giles, to find a way to get things right again.

"Morning," said the still half-asleep voice of Dawn as she entered the kitchen.

Buffy turned to look at her sister, dreading to see red marks on her face. They were here all right, but it was not all. Her little sister had horns coming out of her temples and following the curve of her skull to finish with their points over her brow. Her hair had also changed color, becoming dark red in a way that Buffy could guess to be just as natural as her own brand-new golden blonde. Lastly, a fine tail swayed behind her.

"I suppose you're hungry," said Joyce, smiling.

"Yes, Mom…" said Dawn, arranging a lock of hair behind her pointed ear.

"Nightmare… has to be a nightmare…" said Buffy, pinching her arm, hoping that she was just hallucinating as a consequence of some kind of wound received the night before. Even being completely delusional and in a padded cell would be better than her sister behaving as if having horns and a tail was normal.

"Mom?" asked Dawn.

"Your sister's transition was more difficult than yours, Dawn-chan. She will still need a while to understand."

"It's not that bad, neechan," said Dawn.

"Not that bad… You… me… we're demons! You cannot even go outside without…"

"You remember that episode where Puck twisted Demona's wish and turned everyone into Gargoyles? That's what I helped Mom do last night… except with gods and demons and only the people in Sunnydale."

Buffy remembered that cartoon and that episode. Not only everybody was changed, but all people taken in the spell thought the situation was normal.

"No… I cannot… no!" she yelled while breaking from her mother's embrace and running out of the house.

"Should I tell Zu to bring her back, Mom?"

"No need, dear. She needs to realize that there is no hope. She needs to understand that she has to give in and embrace the change, like you and I did."

"You speak of it as it was a bad thing… Pam enjoyed being a devil and… devils are maybe a little rough and competitive but they're not evil, at least not forced to be evil."

"You don't have your sister's preconceptions about us. Anyway… she will probably run straight to the high school's library to look for Rupert and…"

"Now that will be funny. Mom, may I fly to school?"

"Hmmm… not today. The tweaks Richard and I did on the apathy field last night will only allow for so much. One of the things I need to help with today is to replace it with a full glamour that will make our town look like the epitome of suburbia for any passing outsider, even with flying teens. So keep you wings tucked in today. Study well and make our House proud, Dawn."

"I will, Mom."

_- Rosenberg House, Sunnydale, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 07:41 -_

"Where am I?" asked Willow as she woke up and put a hand on her aching head.

She recognized the place. She was lying on the sofa of her home's living room, still clad in her Halloween costume, minus the ghost sheet that had caused her so many problems. She wondered if the rather racy top Buffy had her wearing was too small.

_No… it's the bra that became too small…_

She got up and walked to the stairs to reach her room when she stopped brutally, right in front of the mirror.

"Oh boy…" she said as she looked at her reflection, remembering the favorite quote of Scott Bakula in Quantum Leap. "Hello… Urd-chan."

She tried to smile, letting her hands run on her new face, right to the upside down blue triangle on her brow and to the ones at the corner of her eyes. There were differences, like the fact her hair was platinum blonde, maybe with a slight hint of her former red, instead of Urd's pure white. She also had a slightly lighter tan than the one of the Elder Norn. Actually, this was something she could have done herself with some heavy attendance to a salon.

_But not the eyes… exit my old blue; I'm well into purple territory now. _

She also understood better why she felt like her bra was constricting her. She had inherited at least some of the goddess' cleavage and her shape had lost the last remnants of childhood to make her… smoking hot.

She posed before the mirror, contemplating her own body as a smile crept on her face, thinking how she would be able to flaunt it before Cordelia and, more than all, use it to make Xander notice her.

"Wait… I'm not feeling embarrassed at all by the fact my breasts are almost spilling out of my bra… I just feel… deliciously wanton."

Following her hunch, she concentrated, looking for something else the rather shameless Urd could have left in her. She quickly found it, the most evident part being the neatly organized alchemical recipes that now resided in her memory, among which more than thirty variations on the love potion.

"How… of course: Mother!"

She quickly covered her mouth with both hands.

_I said Mother instead of Hild!_

She remembered Urd's origins in the manga. She was half-goddess and half-demon, the daughter of Hild and… her father's identity was not sure in the manga but Willow now knew it straight from the source. Urd's father was the Allfather, also known as Odin or Kami-sama. She had half-brothers and half-sisters, but she was the eldest of all and the only child of Hild.

She also remembered something that Urd said in the manga. She said that the balance between her goddess part and her demon part was delicate and that she couldn't love her mother, or she would fall.

_And Buffy's mother was Hild last night… I… I'm gonna end up with red marks. Mrs. Summers was more of a mother to Xander and me than our own parents were. _

She reached her room and opened the closet.

"I need to do some shopping… well maybe I can…"

She concentrated, trying to find the desired memory. She smiled as she found it but quickly realized it was more complex than she initially thought. Contrarily to some games she had played, the spell's power was not dictated by combat usefulness but by the actual forces controlled.

_And molecular manipulation is complicated… Maybe I could do some tests on small items. _

She removed her bra and donned a t-shirt that used to be loose on her formerly petite frame. For her new bigger self, it made her braless status all too evident. Thinking about how the boys would ogle her if she went to school like this, she felt a curious mix of excitation and embarrassment.

_Maybe Shei… Mom's clothes could work as an emergency and I can go shop after school. _

She scolded herself for being, once again, confused on her mother's identity. She perused a little through Sheila Rosenberg's closet and found a bra that would be bearable for one day.

_Hmm… her light grey skirt suit… without the jacket and by showing enough cleavage… _

She started to dress, not wanting to think too much about the fact Urd's way of thinking was influencing her.

"Not too bad," she said while checking the result in the room's mirror.

She heard the bell ringing and got down to open. As she opened, she had the impression to see double.

"Heimdall?" asked Willow, feeling one of Urd's memories impose itself.

"You too?" asked Xander Harris, pointing the blue marks on his face, then on hers.

"Come in, Xander."

She led him to the living room and made him sit on the couch.

"What about the verbal invite? You know that's dangerous, Will."

"Please… you're a god, not a vampire."

He looked at her, trying to determine if she was joking. But there was something with her smile that was decidedly un-Willow. It was a small, bemused smile with something that could be a touch of cruelty.

_I… I remember that smile. I used to say that she had the same smile as her mother… then lightning usually hit me. _

"You're remembering things you never lived, right?" asked Willow. "It's because of what happened last night. A transformation spell… and I think it's permanent."

"Why?"

"Yesterday evening, before I became… part Urd, I met… Mo… Hild."

He rose instinctively and started to look around. He didn't know why that name provoked a major panic attack in him but… Suddenly, he started to see like he had never seen. The walls, the horizon, the distance: nothing mattered, he was seeing the crowd on Hollywood Boulevard. He turned his head slightly and he gazed upon Mexico City.

_How did Willow call me? Heimdall… minute, in the Thor movie, it's the Asgardian that watches over the Bifrost and can see at the other end of the galaxy. _

He closed his eyes, forcing himself to calm, limiting his sight.

"Okay… I can see very far and very well… even through walls."

"Which leads me to the warning most goddesses gave to Heimdall: peeping will lead to a severe case of smiting… or you can try to peep on Mrs. Summers but… she's Hild."

Again, he felt fear… no, not fear: terror. He remembered things about that name. Hild was the queen of demons, the one being in all of the Nine Worlds that could force Surtur to kiss her feet. A woman without equal in both beauty and power and… a mother whose daughter had left her mark on Willow.

"Do you think it can be reversed? I mean… Mrs. Summers… she became a demon?"

"I'm afraid not," said Willow, shaking her head. "That kind of things… the power needed… only the fact Mother has been included in it against her will. One does not spend that kind of energy on a temporary prank."

"So, what do we do?"

"Let's go to school. Mortals cannot see our marks and…"

"Will, all the people I saw coming here either had blue or red ones… and some of the demons had visible horns and tails."

"Let's go see Giles; he should be in the library."

_- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 07:58 -_

Joyce put her cup and a coffee capsule in the brand new machine. It was a gift from the Mayor that had been delivered early in the morning, probably following her comments during their midnight meeting. It had come with a card saying that he was looking forward to work with her. She took back the filled cup and inhaled the aroma with delight.

_Thankfully, we demons are made of a sturdier stuff than humans… the night has been long and very busy. I hope Dawn won't doze in class, given that she didn't have much more rest than me… _

While the Halloween transformation spell itself had ended fairly early in the evening, as most of the town's population fell brutally asleep, the few of them still awake had started to work with haste.

_Contrarily to Buffy, I could not afford the luxury of denial… I had to embrace everything that was Hild in me… like so many others. _

The Mayor and she had reprogrammed the spell that made people think vampire attacks were gangs on PCP or some other lame cover to hide what happened in Sunnydale from outside forces, both mundane and supernatural. She had herself added wards that would prevent the Sunnydalers from leaving the town until they could be sure all transitions were done.

Others like Buer, Sitri, Dawn and her friends had returned the people to their homes and repaired the worst of the damage to the town, sometimes with a few additions, like former vampires using some magic to turn their lairs into real homes.

Her own schedule for today would be pretty full and she would have to rely on Giles to handle Buffy. Things were still too fragile, particularly with the undertown's untouched demons.

_I have no time to be gentle, not with what's at stake. They will behave or they will die… eviler than yesterday indeed. _

She wondered briefly if she should have stayed ignorant, but banished the thought with a scowl. Ignorance made her commit her daughter to an asylum after the Hemery massacre, because she wouldn't believe in vampires.

Matter warped under her will as her clothes changed into a burgundy pant suit and she resumed what was now her true appearance instead of the disguise she had donned to lessen the shock for Buffy. Her hair shifted to platinum blonde and her skin darkened a little. Her eyes were neither the hazel of her human guise nor Hild's purple, but the same burgundy as her suit.

She had places to go and people to see. As she passed before the mirror in the entrance, she smiled to her own reflection, seeing with delight that the small wrinkles that had reminded her of her age were gone.

_This is a perk I know I will enjoy…_

_- Streets of Sunnydale, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 08:04 -_

Dawn walked in the streets, greeting some people as she progressed. It was a shame that she wasn't allowed to fly to school but… they had to be a little cautious for the moment. During the last night, she had felt Pam's cheerful attitude seep in her, making her want to make friends with everyone. She remembered how, after her arrival in the world where Deamonea and Angelea stood, Pam had had broken a taboo by trying to become the friend of the angel Linfa.

Dawn had a dreamy smile as the foreign memories showed her how Linfa finally surrendered to Pam and how their friendship had evolved into something more. Dawn wondered if her first kiss would be as good as Pam's… and with a girl. The devil girl had not really cared about gender or even species, only looking at people's hearts.

"You're blushing, mate," said the voice of Kit. "Thinking about Linfa?"

"Yeah… I wonder… what if she's here too?"

"Most of the people we know are. Even that angel high-up, Aregna, is, working on some top-secret project with President Malphas. So there is a good chance she is. All I have to say is that you're a demon, so act like one: conquer her!"

Dawn raised an eyebrow. Kit had always been a little daring but this was typical Raim behavior, the kind that could be resumed with one word: charge!

"I saw Mom talking with Professor Buer and Sitri this morning," said Dawn, preferring to change the subject.

"Guess we will have some magic classes squeezed in at some point. Here comes Vine… I mean Amanda."

Amanda seemed to have discarded Californian fashion for typical 'Vine' robes. Dawn remembered that Vine had often been a little self-conscious about her horse-like tail, an uncommon trait among demons.

"Good morning," said Amanda. "Sorry to be late, but I had to discuss some things with my parents…"

"How are they taking it?"

"I'm not sure… at some moments they don't even seem to notice they are demons now, at others… I left Viviane to look after them."

Dawn nodded, remembering that Viviane was the name of Vine's familiar undine.

"It's good to have you both here," said Dawn, hugging both of them.

_- Below Sunnydale, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 08:17 -_

Joyce was bathed in black and dark red flames. Everything had gone smoothly with the representatives of the undertown demon clans until those Fyarls decided to crash the party. Now, she was feeling another part of her humanity die. Fyarls were not renowned for their intelligence, but she had hoped that they would behave too.

_Guess that was too much to ask, particularly when I'm about to enforce peace with the surface…_

One of them tried to tackle her and she dodged easily, relying on Hild's well-trained combat reflexes. With a swift move, she put her hand on his skull and crushed it. A sweep of her hand and black lightning incinerated two others, which left her with three more to deal with. One tried to throw his paralyzing mucus at her, only to see it burn on her flaming aura.

"You. dared. to. spit. on. me?" she said, detaching each word.

In a corner of the room, a Brachen representative was trying very hard not to be noticed. They could all feel the power rolling off her, the kind of power they had thought reserved to old legends, the ones about the Old Ones. He gasped when he saw her plunge her hand in the Fyarl's chest and come out with a reddish shape she crushed thoroughly.

"Did you see?" asked another demon observer. "She ripped his soul out of his body and crushed it… Only true demons can…"

"Now, listen!" said Joyce in a voice carrying all the iciness of Niflheim, "I am Joyce and I am in charge! You will obey or I will destroy you!"

The demons, including the two surviving Fyarls, knelt quickly. In a nearby passage, Angel, former vampire with a soul, rubbed the red marks on his face, not knowing what to think about the recent changes.

_- Sunnydale High, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 08:21 -_

_All of them… Dawn was right; it's like in that episode of Gargoyles…_

She looked at the students that were assembling before the beginning of the classes. All of them had marks, either blue or red. Some were like Dawn, with horns and a tail or had some other kind of animal traits. There was even a girl with blue marks that had a halo.

_Some of them… I know them… that demon girl is Eligor and the boy here Ravana… Stop Buffy! Can't allow those memories to mingle with yours. _

"I could ask you if know what's happening and why all of them behave like if things were normal but… you seem even more in denial than me."

Buffy turned, having recognized Cordelia's voice. Of course, she had marks on her face, blue diamonds that were… familiar to her.

"You know that I have to control myself not to speak like some sort of French Canadian hipster?" continued the school queen.

"Sorry, I…" said Buffy, still struggling to push Mara's memories back.

"Since yesterday, I am sharing my head with someone else," said Cordelia with an accent that was decidedly not Californian but effectively reminded Buffy of a past trip in Montreal. "Do you have any clue on what is happening?"

"No… only that it affects the whole town and that most people just don't care… In fact I think that only the people who knew about the real Sunnydale have noticed there was something… abnormal. I… I think we have to do something fast, before the change settles in us and…"

"Hey, Mara! Glad to see you're here too!"

Buffy turned again, looking at a guy she remembered having seen in computer class and now had red marks. His name was… she didn't remember, maybe Sunny. No, that wasn't it. His name was Susano-o and he was a good friend, occasionally with benefits, of Mara. Buffy blushed, hard, as she glimpsed into memories tied to… a certain activity.

"Ah, you're here!" said Willow's voice, coming from Susano's bag. "One minute, I can make this… work!"

The demon boy quickly took his laptop out of his bag and opened it. Willow's face appeared on the screen, before her hand suddenly came out of the screen, followed by her body and a rather flustered Xander. Except that it wasn't the Willow they knew, but a platinum blonde, tanned girl with more than honorable cleavage who had landed in a pose flaunting her perfect body.

"Thanks for lending me your screen, Susano," said Willow.

"No big deal, Urd. It's nice to see you're here too. My sister may be less enthusiastic, however."

"Ama-chan's here? How many pranks since yesterday?"

"We agreed on a ceasefire until things settled down."

Buffy felt the need to cry but… she wasn't sure why. Was it to see that Willow had lost herself so easily? True, she had always been curious and a little reckless and she could well imagine why her best friend would delve deeper and deeper in the alien memories if it meant doing things like… teleporting. But there was also something coming from Mara, childhood memories where she played with a girl that resembled Willow's new form. There was also something more recent, a Ping-Pong match ending with an exchange of fireballs and lightning bolts as none of them wanted to admit losing to the other.

"On the name thing: I think it will be just Willow, at least for now. And you?"

"Sonny is still good, oh greatest geek of Sunnydale High… though in your current form, cheerleaders are going to hate you for having both brains and a killer body, you know. See you later in computer class, Willow."

Willow smiled as Soichiro "Sonny" Tsujimoto waved her goodbye with an impish grin. She remembered another thing coming from Urd's memories. While she had been the first, she was not the only one with mixed ancestry. Susano-o was like her, though he had made the other choice.

"Showoff," said Cordelia, smirking, "though I must say it's nice to see you finally showing some spine."

"Indeed… Peorth."

Cordelia winced and rubbed her temples, not liking very much the flood of memories this name brought in her. Near her, Buffy remembered Peorth too, but she was still fascinated by the new and improved Willow. Willow had been in many ways the first real friend she had. The people at Hemery didn't count. And now… Willow had in her head Mara's best friend: Urd, daughter of Hild and Odin and she seemed to enjoy it thoroughly. Seeing her exchange snarky comments with Cordelia was something totally alien for the shy Willow but… Urd was her mother's daughter.

She looked at Xander as he straightened a little his clothes. He had god marks too and she remembered reading a file about someone with the same eye-like oval on his brow: Heimdall.

"Don't you find Willow scary?" she asked to the male member of their little group.

"Most 'twilight children' have short tempers," he replied, using Heimdall's knowledge. "So… you're Mara, right?"

"I… she's stuck in my head, destroying me little by little."

"Willow thinks it cannot be undone."

"Giles?"

"Giles."

"Hem! Ladies?" said Xander at the attention at the two bickering teens.

"What?" said both girls, turning very angry eyes at him while Buffy prudently put some steps between her and the boy, an eye looking at the sky for lightning strikes.

"Shouldn't we see Giles?" he asked, drawing into Heimdall's vast reserves of self-control.

"True… guess I got carried over," said Willow.

"He may know something," said Cordelia.

As they progressed through the school, Cordelia thought about her recent 'discussion' with Willow. She knew it had broken some barriers in her mind and that the limit between what Peorth had left of herself in her and her own personality was a lot blurrier. She looked at the members of the 'library club' walking before her.

_I like the new Willow. Finally, there is someone with which I can trade barbs… I really pity the fool who tries to bully her now. Urd has always been a category of her own, just like her mother. Xander has Heimdall's memories… not too bad. Heimdall is a little stiff but there is potential. As for Buffy… amusing to see that she's the one of us that had the most knowledge about the supernatural but also the one with the most reluctance to accept our current changes. No… it's not that surprising. I remember hearing her wishing for a normal life. She's just afraid, afraid to be fully swallowed by the weirdness. _

They arrived before the library's doors. A sign indicated: 'Closed for transformations, the library will reopen in the new annex next Monday'. From behind the door, sounds of machines and crackling electricity came.

"Has someone heard about a new annex?" asked Buffy.

"No," replied Willow.

"I could tell you that the library is closed and to go your way but Rupert is waiting for you anyway," said a voice from behind them.

Miss Calendar, the computer science teacher, passed before them and muttered some words as she put her hand on the door. Her face had red marks that were familiar to the Slayer.

_Vapula… Niflheim's Tony Stark. _

A complex seal became visible, its lines of red light tracing the door. Parts of it modified, breaking the lines as the door opened. On the other side, there was little left of the library. Jenny Calendar ushered the teenage gods and demon through the door and re-sealed it behind them.

The whole library was gone. They stood on a catwalk over a hole filled with complex machinery that they all recognized as the kind of magitech used in Asgard and Niflheim. It was obviously still in construction, but part of it already looked functional. Near the bottom of the hole was a crystal globe covered in demonic seals and containing a kind of vortex of storming energy. Probes extended from the globe's inner surface into the vortex, pumping something and feeding it to the machine.

The teens knew what it was. They had never seen that vortex like this, but they had felt its influence during their showdown with the Master last year. It was the Hellmouth itself, but completely sealed and, worse, used as an energy source.

"It's still a work in progress," said Jenny, a smug grin on her face, "but we worked well last night."

"Of course… you're creating Nidhogg… out of the Hellmouth," said Buffy.

"Not only," she said, pointing the top of the machine.

There was another globe, this time covered in Asgardian runes that extracted energy from a kind of heavenly glow. They looked at the gods and demons working here, putting circuits together or drawing magical seals to improve the ensemble. Cordelia recognized some of Peorth's colleagues. Giles seemed to be overseeing the whole thing, looking over plans with a blonde man.

Buffy fell on the ground, sobbing. She tried to remember the strength she had shown in the last year, facing a disaster after another but this was just too much. Not only had Giles red marks and horns but he was working on something that she knew would not fix the situation, but make sure it could never be unraveled.

She felt Willow's arms holding her.

"Hey… it's all right, semi-sister," said Willow.

"Semi-sister?"

"I think we have… the same mother now. We're… different now, but it's not that bad. You were strong for all of us since you arrived in Sunnydale. Now, it's time for us to be there for you."

_- City Hall, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 08:45 -_

Joyce sat in the Mayor's office and looked at Richard Wilkins the Third, noticing very familiar blue marks and the patch on his left eye.

"So… I suppose that our subterranean citizens are being dealt with?" he asked her.

"Tentatively," replied Joyce. "They acknowledge my strength but we will have to be cautious. Once the outsiders start to send agents here…"

"Removing Sunnydale from this world could help us with that."

"But open us to full warfare from the others. Our current position on Midgard is a security concern, but also a protection as they still struggle to maintain their masquerade regarding the humans."

"I will have to make an announcement tonight. The empathic field eased the transition, but it can only do so much."

He looked at her as she nodded, thinking about how Halloween had both sent his own plans down the toilet and replaced them with something that would grant him a lot more than what he originally bargained for when creating Sunnydale, a century ago. Being the Allfather would be a lot more gratifying than becoming a simple demon.

_Oh my... there is still a lot of work to do but I guess we can manage. _

"I would also like to… invite you for dinner," he said.

She had that wicked smile he liked so much.


	3. The Demon and the Slayer

_Author notes: and here comes the third chapter of this story. I hope you will enjoy it. While this is not a direct crossover, 2 roleplaying games had a direct influence on this story: In Nomine Satanis / Magna Veritas and Nephilim: the Revelation. Among other things, this had influence on the personality of some demons.  
_

**_Chargone:_**_indeed, the Mayor. As I found it fun to make Hild one of Sunnydale's purest people, symmetry required the vilest one to be the Allfather. _

_- Sunnydale High, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 08:35 -_

Buffy looked at Giles as he came up the stairs. He had red marks like her and horns. Just like the strange demon in the kitchen, he didn't feel evil. It was quite the opposite in fact. His gaze felt softer, like the one of a kind grandfather.

She felt Willow hugging her, telling her that it was their time to be strong for her, that she should rest. She heard Xander say something about a goatee and noticed that Giles indeed had one now, as well as pointed nails like De Niro in Angel Heart.

"Sleep," said Giles, touching her brow.

She tried to resist but the part of her that was Mara recognized a spell woven with the casual efficiency of a first class demon. She fell soundly asleep in Willow's arms.

_- Sunnydale High, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 08:36 -_

"Was that necessary?" asked Willow.

"She's near the breaking point," replied the former Watcher, lifting his Slayer in his arms. "Come with me, we will settle her in my office so that she rests."

They followed him as they reached one of the few remaining parts of the library and he laid her on his office's couch. "Xander, can you get me the blanket in that cupboard?"

"Here, Giles," replied the young god, handing the item.

"When she wakes up…" said Willow.

"Rest will do her a lot of good, help her to weather the shock. Once she is awake, I will discuss with her without… drama."

He ushered them out of the office, closing the door behind them.

"It's strange… I mean Will and I, even Cordelia here, we're not affected as she is by that…" said Xander.

"It's actually easy to understand," said Cordelia. "Willow, you knew a lot about the story telling Urd's adventures, right?"

"Yes, it's a manga – a Japanese comic book – called Ah! My Goddess!"

"So you had an idea of where you were going… and you gained a supermodel body in the deal. Xander here is probably playing with Heimdall's vision given the way he stares at walls, so I will say the cool factor helped a lot. As for me, I will never have to worry about wrinkles and that makes for a lot. But Buffy… you remember how she said that her family and friends was an important part of what made her continue the fight?"

Willow looked at Cordelia and had another of her typical 'Urd' smiles. She wondered if the school queen that had bullied her for years realized how much Peorth was influencing her. This was still snarky enough to be Cordelia, but it showed concern instead of a will to dominate her entourage.

"And now, because of what happened, she feels like she lost us," said Xander. "Even worse, Mrs. Summers being H… Hild…"

"I'm afraid that is correct," said Giles. "Unfortunately, we will all have to make do with those changes."

"It cannot be undone?" asked Xander.

"Not with anything in our current reach," replied the former Watcher. "We would need a full-blown Yggdrasil and Nidhogg, plus this world's Tupsimati."

"What's the Tup… thinga…" asked Xander.

"Tupsimati," said Willow. "Xander, that's the Babylonian version of the Infinity Gauntlet."

"Oh… that bad," said the teenager, remembering the comics where this gauntlet appeared and what it could do.

"There is another thing to consider," said Cordelia, once again feeling Peorth's knowledge seep through her. "This world's gods, those Powers That Be you told us about, will really not appreciate our creation. You also said that they used champions like the Slayer rather than intervening directly. Given how they treat Buffy, I mean with the whole Master debacle, we will be at war with them as well as the 'other' demons sooner than later. Tabarnak! Given how this world is managed, I'm up for a revolution!"

_Decidedly have to give her a 'Vive le Québec libre!' banner, _thought Willow, smiling, while Cordelia materialized a red rose in her hand and started to inhale its perfume. Willow remembered some things about Peorth, things coming from Urd. Peorth had spent a lot of time in that place, when it was still a French colony, to help accomplish the wish of a man who wanted to better the relations between the colons and the natives. She had returned there, from time to time and could in many ways be considered the patron goddess of the province.

"That's why you're helping, Giles, right?" asked Willow.

"Yes, that's why I am helping. Our encounters with Whistler in the last year left me with few illusions on the Powers and I know how the Watchers' Council will react. The only thing that will give us a little time is that both the demons and the Powers will hesitate to make a too important move, out of fear that the other took advantage of a momentary weakness."

"Little practical question," asked Xander. "I'm Heimdall, Willow's Urd and Cordelia's Peorth…"

"Not any demon you know, as… that part of me comes from a different world. His name is Malphas and he is the President of the Devil Council in his world."

"But you have demon marks," said Cordelia

"They are new. We had to link everyone to Nidhogg and Yggdrasil, which is why devils from Malphas' world have red marks and angels blue ones. We also recognize Joyce's authority as our Queen."

_- Elsewhere, time irrelevant -_

"Is it a dream?" asked Buffy as she looked at the desert dunes.

"Rather a mindscape," replied a feminine voice on her left.

The Slayer turned and saw a woman in a rather racy black leather outfit. In many ways, she was an older version of herself – looking maybe around thirty – but Buffy also recognized some of the traits she had seen in the mirror, earlier in the morning, like the golden, wavy hair or the demon marks.

"You're Mara… and what's a mindscape?"

"A place in your mind, kind of a virtual reality for meetings between spirits. We're actually three here."

"Three?"

"She's lurking somewhere in the dunes, probably hunting a metaphorical gazelle or something. She is the part of you that is the Slayer. Don't expect her to have much of a conversation though."

"Why are you still here? You should have left when… Hild ended the transformation spell."

"There is hope… I'm not here, not in the sense you think. This shape is just a program I left behind because I expected some difficulties with you. It can use my memories in you to give you the illusion that I am here. If you prefer, this copy of me is a little like a vampire, not alive but faking it not too badly."

"Not the best way to convince me you're going to play nice…"

"Probably but I have to work with what I have. As your mother said during breakfast, your knowledge on the supernatural is both limited and biased. As a matter of fact, you do not seem really interested in understanding why."

"What can I say? I'm not a research girl."

"This is not about research, Buffy," said Mara, shaking her head. "I know that you did not ask to be the Slayer or to become a demon. If you could, you would like nothing more than to be an insouciant teenager. But some asses who spit on free will stuck you with the Slayer and you felt compelled to use the power to protect others from monsters. Somehow, you resigned yourself to the idea that you would die young. To be honest, I'm one of the best things that happened to you since the Slayer activated, the other being the presence of your friends."

"Really?" asked Buffy with a derisive smile.

"Really," replied Mara, in a tone that left little place to uncertainty. "Last night, after I taught your pal Spike to respect his betters, I made some analyses on you and the Slayer. The results… In a way I was impressed by the level of ruthlessness of the people who created the thing."

"Eh… Not sure I understand here."

"From what I could extract from the Slayer's memories… a long time ago, some human sorcerers did two things to create the first Slayer. First, they captured and tortured a powerful demon, remolding it into a barely sentient thing capable to enhance its host. Second, to create the bond with the girls that would be called in the future… well you all have a common ancestor, a woman who had five daughters. The eldest daughter was tortured too, violated in every part of her essence by the entity the sorcerer created. She became the first Slayer, a feral fighter barely able to think and an obedient slave to the sorcerers. Her sisters were transported in other parts of the world and it was made sure that they had daughters."

Buffy didn't know what the worst was. Was it Mara's sarcastic tone when describing such horrors or the fact that theory was believable? She knew from experience that the Slayer was definitely not a pure thing. Sure it gave her the power to protect a lot of people but… she knew how she felt when she lost herself in the dance of death, that dark joy at destroying demons that left her with a desire to bed the first passing male.

"That doesn't match, from what you say it should run in families," she said, trying to find holes in Mara's logic.

"Good to see your brain is working. The answer is that it ran in families. The blood thinned over the millennia, making the activation of the 'Slayer' genetic sequence look a lot more random. But however interesting this is, it's not the point. My boss ordered me to give the Slayer a makeover. You can believe me, taming that bitch has not been easy and the 'real me' will need a looong vacation to recuperate…"

"What kind of makeover?" asked Buffy, suddenly very worried.

"The main thing is that the Slayer package comes with a series of curses I had to undo. The sorcerers had to make sure the beast they created would not turn against them. So they made the Slayer with a 'puppet' mode that could be activated. The curse's log says it has not been activated in centuries so I don't think the Watchers know the password for that. Anyway, it's a moot point as I destroyed the program."

Buffy pinched the bridge of her nose. Thanks to Mara's deductive abilities now crammed in her brain, she assembled small hints in what Giles said over the last year and Merrick during the short while he trained her in Hemery.

_Giles wouldn't use such a thing but from what he said… he is a 'liberal' Watcher… Merrick… we had no time for formal training and he died before he could really become my Watcher. _

"If those sorcerers were that smart, that's surely not all."

"You're learning… Another curse is one you know very well: the 'demon magnet' thing. You know how it attracts the baddies to you but it has side effects made to influence the Slayer in a certain way. The curse not only attracts demons but it also projects aggression. In short, it makes a lot more probable that any encounter with demons will end badly."

"Leading me to conclusions like: 'all demons are evil and must be purged'… What else?"

Mara had a little smile as she watched Buffy's pout. She was, little by little, reaching one of the goals of this chat, leading the neo-demon girl out of depression and turning her anger on another target. Still, she had some more nails to hammer on that coffin.

"The third one is about that notion you have that human evil is not for you to sort out. It's a protection mechanism made by the sorcerers so that no matter their crimes, the Slayer would not turn on them. The issue with this is that this curse would have made you incapable to kill a human even it was the only way to save a friend or a family member."

"I'm not a…"

_What… a murderer? What makes human so special? Why should their lives have more worth than the ones of any other species? _

She felt just… wrong. It was as if…

"I'm having thoughts…" said Buffy. "It's like if… I was allowed to have them and hadn't been before."

"That's an effect of that curse. It's undone and you're free to act as you like. In order to… plug some holes in your education, I will give you a little history lesson. Now, you can be reassured, it won't be a boring lecture."

"Then how?"

"Just by taking a peek in my memories. I have seen many things since humans invented writing."

Mara snapped her fingers in a way that reminded Buffy of Alan Rickman's character in that movie about angels Willow and Xander had roped her into watching a while ago.

_- Joyce's office, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 09:15 -_

"Ash… Joyce," said the recently appointed Queen of Hell, answering the call on her smartphone. "I see… let her sleep, Rupert. Knowing Mara, she anticipated this. I'm coming to see Snyder this afternoon about the changes in school programs. I will talk to her then."

She was sitting in the building that was formerly hosting her art gallery and that had been refitted for her offices. There were so many things to setup and very little time to do it.

_I almost replied using Asherah, the name Hild used in the Middle East and… Satan. Satan is not a name, it's a title. My title._

"Your coffee, my Queen," said a woman looking very much like a typical succubus.

Joyce smiled, thanking Hild for making sure most of her satanic staff created equivalents here. She inhaled the beverage's aroma with a delighted sigh, thinking she would have to see to get a certain actor fond of saying 'what else' under contract.

"Thank you, Eisheth," she replied, using her secretary's demon name.

_Demon… will have to find something else or we'll keep confusing us with the lowly demon hybrids from this world… Shedim. Shedim for us and Elohim for the gods. I will talk with Richard about it. _

"Mammon asks about the degree of subtlety he should show."

"The barest minimum to avoid detection from Wolfram and Hart. We need results quickly and they are the only faction with the know-how about modern financial markets to understand what we're doing. Next?"

"A few nests of vampires which were deep enough underground to escape your wrath last night. Belial and Bifrons are taking care of it."

"I want total extermination… tell Bifrons to take samples and start to experiment on vampire-specific viruses. About Spike, Drusilla and Angel?"

"We are sure they were converted. Marchosias and Sigyn are looking for them and the Mayor detached Ares and Lind to assist them."

Joyce snorted, remembering how… difficult it could be with Sigyn, particularly if she had to work with gods. Not that Marchosias was much better. After a mess in the eighties, Susanoo had given the two female demons a nickname taken from an anime that was, according to him, fitting to their style.

"Tell the Dirty Pair they are to report immediately once they find them… let's just hope old hates will not resurface."

Joyce leaned in her chair as her secretary left the office, happy to let what she called the 'Hild-mode' slip a little, to find back more of her old self. She took a sip of coffee.

"Tonight… tonight I'll just cuddle with my daughters and watch some sappy movies while eating ice cream. Tonight I will forget how easy it was to order the extermination of sentient beings and research on weapons of mass destruction."

She looked in herself, searching for some kind of guilt.

"Nothing, just concern about how far the act is removed from my old self and a desire to reconcile myself with what I was. But a gut feeling of 'Oh My God! It's wrong!'? Nope, nothing at all. Congratulations, Joyce: your humanity is dead."

She knew that the woman she was only the day before would have wept at her lost humanity. But once she had signed, renouncing to her old self for that chance to change things, Hild had re-forged her into a new woman. Not only had her body the instincts of a species that was intrinsically more individualistic than humans but Hild's memories were… old.

_But not the full package or I would just be a Hild clone with knowledge of an incarnation as a puny little mortal called Joyce. Yet, the things I remember, the things she did… like tampering with evolution to create us humans… no, not us. It did not happen in this reality and… I cannot say 'us' when speaking about humans, not anymore. _

Her thoughts drifted as she remembered how a certain book interpreted Hild's big project to speed up humanity's rise to sentience.

"For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil… I… Hild did this."

_- Mara's memories, time irrelevant -_

"Where are we?" asked Buffy to Mara.

"You remember that movie you saw when you and Willow did that Orlando Bloom marathon? That's Jerusalem during the First Crusade. Now… look at man's evil."

Buffy looked with a kind of morbid fascination as the Crusaders breached the walls and slaughtered the population. Hearing about such things in history class, when the teacher dared to evoke them, was one thing. Reading accounts of the deeds was one thing. Watching a movie that presented a romanced view of the events was one thing. Feeling through all her senses the memory of someone who had been there was a completely different experience.

"They're no better than vampires!" she yelled as she witnessed another family being murdered.

Her hand clutched the cross around her neck, the silver cross Angel gave her. Only that last thought prevented her from ripping it away.

"You… you..." she said, turning to Mara. "You just… watched this!"

"Pot this is kettle calling…"

Buffy scowled, knowing very well one of the points this scene was supposed to hammer in her. This was human evil. According to her own values, it did not concern the Slayer.

"I did what I could given the rules that bind me, Buffy. But I was mostly concerned with preventing the Crusaders from finding Solomon's seal under Temple Mount… think Hellmouth opening and you will have an idea of the consequences."

"Okay… but that was Middle Age. We're better now…"

"Should I show you what I saw in Dachau in 1944?" asked Mara with a smirk.

Buffy paled. It was only thanks to her experience as a Slayer that she was not puking her guts now. She really had no envy to not only see, but hear and smell the death camps.

"Besides," continued the demon, pointing Buffy's brow, "you shouldn't say 'we' but 'they'."

"Thanks to you…"

"Not only," replied Mara, happy to see her charge acknowledge that truth. "Once the Slayer activated, you ceased to be fully human and… let's say the process was still ongoing when my boss tasked me with helping you."

"I get the point… can we leave?"

"Yes, I have still many things to show you…" said Mara while snapping her fingers.

_- Sunnydale High, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 10:17 -_

"You noticed how many people use their 'other name'?" asked Xander as he and Willow changed classes.

"You mean the English teacher telling us to call him Mr. Charon?"

"That and the black robes… I swear I saw an oar in that cupboard."

"I don't know… I think it's like we all have a new middle name and some of us just decide to use it."

"Hmm… I think I will still use Xander, and you?"

"I prefer to stay Willow but… we will meet people the 'other us' knew and sometimes it will just be easier to use the other name."

"Like with Susano?"

"Yes. Urd and he know each other. They're drinking buddies despite being in opposite sides. And… Isn't that Apollo?"

"I would rather say Jonathan Levinson but…yeah. Ymir's bones! If he's going to be as insufferable as the original…"

Willow smirked at her friend's outburst. The habits of 'the other' had been seeping through all of them as the day progressed.

"About Buffy… I hope she'll get better though… in the manga Mara is a kind of comic relief. "

"Sorry but I have to disagree, Will," said Xander, who felt another part of Heimdall's memories unlocking.

"Come on, Xander, Mara… well she's a friend but her plans…" said Willow.

"It comes down to a very simple question: if Mara was that lame, how in hell… you know what I mean, did she keep her first class license?"

Willow frowned. She was more familiar with the exams and restrictions that came with a first class license on the god side of things but demons were bound to have a similar 'quality control'.

"What do you… or rather what does Heimdall knows?"

"Things that Athena hinted about in her usual 'I'm so much smarter than all of you put together' way. Obviously, Intelligence did not see fit to inform the Yggdrasil sysadmins or the Goddess Relief Office about some things."

_- Mara's memories, time irrelevant -_

_Again the Middle Age… but somewhere in Europe this time, maybe France. _

She looked below at the water surface below her. She and Mara were standing Jesus-style on a river boarding a city.

"This is Paris?" asked Buffy, pointing the city.

"In 2011, the Pont-Neuf would be just here, passing on that small island with the pyres."

"I suppose you want me to watch the execution… What did they do? They were warlocks?"

"Though I knew one of the people being executed fairly well, no, quite the contrary indeed. What happens here is a fine example of a sin so prevalent in the twenty-first century: greed. However, the sinners are not the men attached to the pyres, they're under that dais. This was done for only one reason: allow them to seize the belongings of the men executed during this night."

Buffy listened to the announcements made in medieval French, a language she now understood perfectly, probably thanks to Mara. She identified the main personage under the dais, the then King of France, called Philippe. Then the names of the accused and the charges were read and the fires lighted.

_Jacques de Molay… sounds familiar… got it: the Knights Templar. _

The image froze as Mara started to speak.

"I met Jacques for the first time in Palestine when he was a young man. The second time, nearly thirty years later in Cyprus, he didn't buy the 'it was my mother' line. But where he surprised me is that instead of trying to exorcise me, we just discussed for a while, like two knights of opposing countries during a truce. After that, I kept an eye on him and offered to bail him out when the agents of the King of France came to arrest him and the other Templars. As you can guess he refused and I respected him for that."

"You said it was because of greed. Why?"

"As a poet said, under the reign of Philippe le Bel, the Kingdom of France was grand and its people unhappy. Too many wars, too many funds spent on secret police. The story is more complex but the gist of it is that the Templars had many riches and the king decided to seize them to pay his debts. So his agents fueled rumors about the Templars to make them unpopular and the pope, too weak to oppose him and protect a religious order, agreed to the arrest. The trial took seven years during which Jacques and the other Templars were kept in prison and tortured until they admitted what the king expected of them."

"I would like to say w… the humans are better but…"

Mara nodded, knowing about which recent events Buffy was probably thinking.

"However, I wasn't inactive then," said the demon.

The image resumed, flames rising to leech the two knights on the pyres.

"Pope Clement, King Philippe, before one year, I summon you before God's tribunal to receive the just retribution for your crimes! Cursed! Cursed! All cursed up to the thirteenth generation of your races!" yelled the Grandmaster of the Templars as death claimed him.

Buffy looked at Mara, who seemed different, like if she was now a part of the memory rather than an observer like her.

"Wish granted, Jacques," she said, demon marks flaring, invisible to the mortals around her. "And now, let's get to work. I have a dynasty to destroy."

The image froze again.

"You killed them."

"Not directly," replied Mara, resuming her 'observer' status. "The pope was already sick. I just made sure any attempt at recovery failed. As for the king, a horse a little too nervous and a stag jumping the wrong way… a tragic accident," she added, smiling innocently.

"It didn't stop there. There is still the part about the thirteenth generation."

"No, it didn't stop there. Contracts have to be respected."

"I suppose you expect me to act like you did."

"You will act as you wish. In this case, I chose to punish boundless greed and to avenge a man I respected."

"There are laws you know."

"Look at them," said Mara, pointing the dais. "King, pope, they're the ones making the laws. Had I not acted, then who would have?"

Buffy pouted knowing very well that Mara would not hesitate to remind her of her own distrust of authority if she persisted. She remembered all too well the problems she had from time to time with Sunnydale's police department.

"But… demons do have rules, right? You said that when we were in Jerusalem."

"We do. Demon rules all come from two principles. First, a demon's word is absolute. Second, free will must be respected. All of our rules are constructed from that. We have a hierarchy because we agree to be part of it, rules because we accepted to renounce to a part of our independence to be stronger as a group. Hild's power may be without equal, but even she couldn't lead us if we didn't believe in her and agree to follow her."

"Hem… Mara, that sounds like a democracy."

"Indeed… There are differences with a place like America, like how we consider that nothing is forbidden if all concerned parties agree to it, but the main principles are the same."

"If you respect so much free will… what's the problem with the gods?"

"This needs some more exposition," said Mara, snapping her fingers.

_- Sunnydale High, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 11:10 -_

"Miss Calendar," said Willow to the computer teacher as the class ended, "may I ask you something?"

"Yes, Willow?"

"You… I mean the 'other you' knows Mara well, right? She loves gadgets and you're Vapula, Niflheim's top gadgeteer…"

"Yes, I know her very well. You could say I was the Q to her James Bond."

"Hem… Are you saying she's one of Niflheim's 'double-zeros'?"

"Sure she is. Top agent, led a lot of operations in the Middle East during the Crusades and later in Europe. Of course, her performance around the Norns in Nekomi didn't look stellar but… her mission was to keep you distracted, not to present a serious threat to you. She put up with the humiliation for so long both because it was her punishment for the whole Fenris debacle and because it allowed her to be near you. It's only when your mother got involved that things got more serious."

"With the angel eater…"

"Which reminds me of one thing: Belldandy and Skuld are active in our Yggdrasil. It's probably just a matter of time before you meet them."

_- Mara's memories, time irrelevant -_

Buffy was puking her metaphorical guts, covering part of the mindscape with smelly content. Mara had shown her cases where the gods' typical approach, also known as 'let's believe in man's innate goodness' had turned for the worst. The whole handling of the contact between the Aztecs and the Spaniards had started with the best of intentions, until it devolved into a complete nightmare that, thanks to Mara, she had witnessed in full.

"Okay… I get the point. Demons mess up, gods mess up, nobody's perfect. What happened to Huitzi… that sun god?"

"He was declared rogue and sealed, put in prison if you prefer. The whole affair was just too embarrassing for Heaven."

"The worst is to think that human sacrifices weren't evil for those people… It's… I probably can't understand because I'm prisoner of my own values, like they were."

Mara clapped.

"Very good. Now, all you have to do is to reject the values imposed to you by a civilization you do not belong to anymore. Rebuild yourself and choose your own values. Define yourself your good and your evil, because there is no truth out there, only differing points of view."

She nodded weakly. Mara had been systematically destroying her benchmarks, showing her that gods and demons were just different cultures that competed to impose their definition of good and evil.

_But… they're just opinions, not truths. _

"I… I will live, find my own way."

Mara reached for her, helping her to get up.

_- Streets of Sunnydale, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 11:12 -_

Harmony Kendall looked with supreme annoyance at Amy Madison. They were temporarily dispensed of school given the nature of their 'other self' and emergency orders issued by their respective hierarchies.

"I can't believe… I should be in the sewers with Marchosias, looking for Angel," said Amy, shadows of snakes dancing in her aura.

Harmony thanked the fact a certain goddess had drilled her with discipline in the last day, allowing her to keep her cool despite the circumstances. She wasn't about to forget how things really happened with Loki and Sigyn, the latter giving the Allfather the finger after Loki's trial and defecting to Niflheim. As that meant that the Valkyries had suddenly lost their second-in-command, creating a huge security risk in Asgard's defenses…

She felt the support of Cool Mint and Spear Mint, her twin familiar angels, and allowed herself a little smile. Lind had really done a lot to boost her self-esteem. However, there was a downside. Now, vying for the position of School Queen, dethroning Cordelia, just felt… futile to her.

"Sigyn… I don't like it any more than you, but orders are orders. I don't want to have to explain to the Allfather that I messed up on my first mission… and you probably want even less to anger Satan."

"If Willy's info is correct, that should be here."

"If it isn't, he will have to talk to my axe," said Harmony with a perfect deadpan tone.

Amy looked at her temporary partner. She still wondered why Lind had chosen Harmony Kendall of all people. The bitchy cheerleader and the cold, professional Valkyrie had nothing in common.

_Maybe she wanted to put her back on the straight and narrow… not like Sigyn and me. We know darkness. We know passion and the taste of betrayal._

Harmony rang the door of the converted warehouse. The door soon opened, revealing a woman with goddess marks.

"Oh my!" said Drusilla as she opened the door. "Lind, it's good to see you!"

"Belldandy?"

"Hmm… in part only, just as you. And… Sigyn," she added, her voice becoming colder.

Amy could see that Drusilla remembered what happened that day and the bitter words that were exchanged.

"I'm not her, Miss… Carpenter."

"Yes… it's true. Do come in, please. My Spike is still resting. I understood he had a run-in with Mara last night."

Amy suddenly felt a very familiar aura coming from the couch. From the part of her that was Sigyn, something was rising.

"Looooki!"

Spike rose from the couch and saw a demon girl with tendrils of darkness resembling snakes dancing around her. He instantly recognized her and he remembered what she thought of 'philandering husbands'.

"Oh bugger…"

_- Sunnydale High, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 11:28 -_

"Are you feeling better?" asked Giles as Buffy drunk her tea slowly.

"Mara and I came to an understanding. I'm… willing to try. Still… I think the goatee is worse than the horns, Watcher mine."

"I am not sure I will keep it but it's already a compromise as Malphas wore a full… I think you would say a 'Gandalf' beard."

"Yeah… Do you think we can do it? I mean, change things?"

"Maybe."

"The Slayer… I didn't know how much it sucked. Thankfully… I'm immortal now, so it means I'm the last one, right?"

_- Spike and Drusilla's home, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 11:35 -_

"Sorry for the mess, Belldandy," said Amy, feeling really embarrassed.

"I suppose some hiccups were bound to happen, given that Spike is Loki," replied Drusilla in a slightly stern tone. "Help me repair the house and we're good."

"Right," said Amy, looking at the holes in the building.

Spike looked at the two women who had started to sing an aria of reconstruction. He adjusted the pack of ice on his brow, thinking more and more it was one of those days… He looked at the third woman who was watching him with a steely gaze.

"So… how does it feel to be Miss Iceberg?" he asked to Harmony.

"It is of no concern to you… traitor."

"Listen, I didn't kill that Balder bloke. Loki did and I'm not him."

"We'll see."

_- 1630 Revello Drive, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 20:45 -_

Buffy snuggled against her mother as the Princess Bride played on their living room's TV. Dawn was on the other side, feeding Zu bits of jerky. From what Willow had told her, her sister's familiar looked like a boy during Halloween. Now, he was cute in a Pokémon kind of way, a small black eagle with a lion head. Zu had told her that the 'boy' shape was a combat one that needed a lot more energy than his current 'chibi' state.

She looked at her mother's face, noticing the darker tan and the platinum blonde hair of what was now her true appearance. In her opinion, it was kind of a compromise between her original shape and Hild's.

"It's all right, honey," said Joyce, caressing her head. "We're still a family and we'll manage as such."


	4. Family matters

_Author notes: I hope you will enjoy this chapter and, please, don't hesitate to review. Good or bad, I enjoy reading your opinion on my work._

**_uklem:_**_Glory... maybe maybe not. I won't spoil anything at this point but one thing is already sure. She would find operating in Sunnydale a lot more difficult than in the original timeline. _**_  
_**

**_Rickmer: _**_well__ you will have some replies on the developments here. _

_- Chase House, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 17:45 -_

Cordelia 'Peorth' Chase threw herself on her bed, feeling exhausted. When she had left in the morning, she had been too angry to really pay attention at the changes in the Chase Mansion. It was only when she got back this evening that she had realized. The first clue had been the servants that turned in a mix of gods and demons. This had been the last straw for her. She had managed to keep a façade that was mostly her old self, maybe a little more insightful, caring and… Canadian than she used to be, but still a good part Cordelia during the morning.

It had all started with PE. Their usual teacher, Ms. Kowalski, had turned into a devil bombshell called Lizyerra that could very well have been Hild's cousin physically speaking… well except for the horns and tail. Peorth remembered through her history lessons that gods and demons in her universe once had such traits but lost them when mingling with the humans without being noticed became more important. Some gods and demons, like the Egyptian ones, were still fond of that 'atavistic' shape and shifted freely between them.

Lizyerra had told her that in her world, devils and angels used to live separately in their respective countries of Deamonea and Angelea, both situated in a small discworld where humans were a myth. A magical 'law of luck conservation' very effectively discouraged contacts between the two people, as a devil helping an angel would suffer from equivalent misfortune and vice versa. Then, one day, Pam Akumachi arrived in Deamonea. The devil trainee claimed she was in fact human and was thrown into events that shook their world, destroying the law of luck conservation and transformed their discworld into a moon of their universe's Earth. One year later, at the moment the Halloween spell 'copied' people from their world on some of Sunnydale's inhabitants, the angels and the devils were living peacefully together and busy rebuilding the cities damaged by the shift as well as establishing diplomatic relations with their Earth.

Another thing they had learnt was that Lizyerra was, in Deamonea, a combat instructor that could probably show a trick or two to most Valkyries. This point had made PE… interesting to say the least. She had finally managed to gather her little circle at lunch.

_- Sunnydale High, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 12:07 -_

Cordelia looked at the group of girls at the lunch table. Two days ago, they had just been… normal girls that were part of her social circle. Now, she could see blue and red marks among them as well as other things.

Aura, childhood friend and distant cousin, was now a goddess. The half-African half Cherokee metis now had a moon crescent on her brow. She wondered which lunar goddess had come to her. Next to her, Gwen had demon marks, two short pointed horns on her brow, a tail and was busy chatting in some obscure demonic dialect with… someone she guessed to be Aphrodisia. In a way, Cordelia thanked the demon that spared Aphrodisia from being Aphrodite's vessel, which would have started a very swift fall into slutdom.

_To be honest, I'm a little unfair… Aphrodite is not that bad but… bad blood between Peorth and her. _

Aphrodisia had now pale skin, rich black hair that cascaded in a mass of curls down to her waist, a delicately toned body, triangular cat ears on the top of her head and a black and white tail swinging with elegance. She had the feeling that she knew her but… she would have the occasion to ask.

As Harmony was missing, that left only the newest addition to their group, a Japanese girl called Reiko who wanted to be as far away as possible from her geeky twin brother. They had been busy breaking her out of a very conservative upbringing. She now had goddess marks and her classical Japanese beauty seemed… magnified.

"Hello to all and bon appétit," said Cordelia as she sat, internally cursing the fact her accent was getting even worse. "Has someone seen Harmony today?"

"I went to pick her up as usual this morning and… she was busy sparring with her little sister," said Gwen.

"Harmony? Sparring?" asked Cordelia with round eyes. "Did she tell her… other name?"

"No need, replied Gwen with a smirk. "A brow seal made of three points in a triangle, lavender hair, a fondness for battleaxes and all the empathy of an iceberg… rings a bell?"

"Lind," chorused Reiko and Aura.

"Ostie d'câlisse…" said Cordelia, shaking her head. "Okay… can we make the 'presentations'? As some of you may have guessed due to my… accent, I'm Peorth, Goddess of Revelation."

"Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt," said Aura with a frown, "and currently very happy that my idiot brother Apollo chose to pester someone from another family."

_Oops… I wonder if she… inherited Artemis' preferences regarding boys and girls… I will have to talk with her later, maybe find whoever merged with Belldandy to help with counseling. _

"Byleth, Demoness of Nightmares," said Aphrodisia with a smirk, "currently in hybrid form because I feel like it. And Aura… it's not that I'm not interested in having some wild, casual sex with you in the future but… until I say otherwise, if you continue your ogling, I'll arrange you a date with Freddy Krueger… so we're cool?"

"Yeah… and sorry, I… I'm still dealing with it."

Cordelia arched an eyebrow as she remembered some things about Byleth. She was considered to be among Niflheim's elite cadre and the rumors said that she could effectively induce nightmares whose events would reflect on the dreamer's body. She also had a reputation to… like extreme pleasures and to have been a regular acquaintance of the Marquis de Sade. Cordelia was pretty sure Peorth and she had met but the memory eluded her.

"Uphir, Devil… will probably be the Demoness of Alchemy once we have Nidhogg fully powered," said Gwen.

_And now… _

"Reiko?"

"I think you can guess but… I… I'm Amaterasu."

Cordelia could see the conflict on the Japanese girl's face. It was like if she was mortified for addressing a goddess she worshipped in such a casual way and, at the same time, was being pushed by Amaterasu's memories to claim the name as hers.

_Peorth… should I thank you or curse you for making me so sensitive to the well-being of my people? Two days ago I would probably have said the latter, now I don't know anymore. _

_- Chase House, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 17:47 -_

_What's happening to me? Am I still me? Where is the confidence I had when I spoke of revolution this morning…_

"Leave me alone," said as she heard a knock on her door's room.

"I am afraid to have some news concerning your parents, senorita Cordelia," said a cultured Spanish voice.

"You can come in, Leonardo."

Sitting on her bed, she looked at the family butler, the man who had often been more of a father figure to her than William Chase ever did. He was still a middle-aged Latino-American man with a kind face, one could maybe say despite the demon marks that adorned it now. There was also something about his accent that, like hers, was not quite the same, maybe… more aristocratic.

"Sorry to ask this, Leonardo but… who are you?"

"A fair question, Senorita, but the answer is almost the same, I am Leonard.

"As in Master Leonard, Seneschal of the House of Helle… then why did you stay?"

"When you were five, Senorita, I made you a promise. Now this promise I made to be there for you and to help you as much as I could… It is not yet recorded in Nidhogg, but my word as a demon has been engaged. Thankfully, her Majesty recognized the contract and, as she wishes to preserve what simplicity she can in her life, allowed me to stay at your service."

Cordelia frowned. She knew the adage about the devil and details and she had the certitude that one thing in the butler's statement was primordial. He said 'her service', not 'her family's service'.

"So, what news do you have, Leonardo? My parents are supposed to be in Rio for the next week."

"My duty to you made me verify that the affairs of your House were in proper order. As I discovered some… incoherencies, I asked Mammon's people to dig a little further. I am afraid that your father made some very unwise moves that will bring the attention of the IRS on your House very soon."

"Daddy cheated on taxes?"

"Mammon did unfortunately not have the time to check in depth for the time being but he said something about 'amateur work'. I would therefore like to have your approval to… move your patrimony out of your father's hands. There is also another matter that will need a decision on your part but it can wait."

"I know… my parents are still human and I'm a goddess. I suppose you will say that it is only normal for me to claim the House's leadership?"

"Indeed, Senorita."

_- Harris House, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 17:58 -_

Xander stopped on the lawn of the Harris house and wondered if Heimdall's vision was playing tricks with him. He blinked several times.

"No… still here."

He had, out of habit, decided to come home late and spend some time with Willow. The main idea was to avoid seeing his parents as much as possible. Tonight, however, some things were… just wrong. For starters, the usually unkempt lawn had been neatly trimmed and the withering peach tree had gained a second youth. The house itself looked… repaired wasn't the word, rather rebuilt. It didn't look that different, just new.

He called on his vision, looking through the walls and seeing a scene that was probably a portent of the next apocalypse. Not only was everything in the house clean and tidied up, including his own room but the only alcohol he could see was a small bottle of rum in the kitchen, in the same cupboard as the other baking goods.

_Where are they? They're usually passed out on the couch at this hour. _

He got in and headed for the kitchen, finding it scarily spotless. He looked at the note stuck on the fridge by a Hello Kitty magnet.

"Xander, the Allfather asked me and your father to help clean up Resthill so we'll probably come back late. There is dinner in the fridge you can heat. Love, your Mom," he read distractedly as his stomach growled.

He opened the fridge finding effectively a plate with a dinner… except that there were more details that didn't compute. This was not an off-the-shelf microwave plate or even Chinese take-away. It was a home cooked shish kebab and he salivated only to look at it.

The problem was that he knew perfectly that his mother couldn't cook. Also, there was the matter of the inscriptions on the plate. Thanks to Heimdall, he recognized a heating spell only lacking the last rune.

_Minute… she said the Allfather, so they're gods like me and… Restfield? That's a cemetery!_

He turned the head and called on his vision.

_- Restfield Cemetery, at the same time -_

Jessica Harris felt great. Not only had her 'visitor from Halloween' managed to make her look a little like a young Liz Taylor, in that movie where she played Cleopatra, but her transformation had also purged her completely of the consequences of her growing alcoholism.

She didn't intend to squander that chance and neither would she allow her husband to do so… even if she doubted that… the other guy in his head would allow him to become once again the jerk who used to beat her. She wiped a little tear. Thanks to what happened to them the day before, she had been given back the good man she had married, before bad luck and alcohol corrupted her family.

_There are so many things to mend… With Tony, with my son… maybe even having another child… Yes, a little brother or sister for Alexander… but now… it's time to play! _

She went straight to a recent tomb, feeling the fell energies of undeath that assembled in the coffin below as the resplendent face of Ra slid under the horizon. She shifted to her hybrid form, flexing her claws while a few words in a language she recently thought to be reserved to the Stargate show parted the earth.

The coffin opened and the neophyte vampire snarled at her as she purred in anticipation. Her currently partially feline brain was classifying the undead in the 'squeaky toy' category.

_- Harris House, at the same time -_

Xander remembered seeing a cat play with a mouse once. Seeing his mother, who currently had the head of a cat, do the same thing with a vampire neophyte was… disturbing.

"Okay… Mom is Bast… now that's scary."

_- Restfield Cemetery, at the same time -_

Jessica rolled to dodge the vampire's mindless charge. The creature was indeed fast and strong and it could maybe overpower her if it managed to lay its filthy hands on her.

_Or rather if I allowed it._

Mana flared in her hands, her pointed nails turning in claws of searing white light. A second later, a precise slash destroyed the vampire's left ankle while she got up in one graceful move. Another slash and the right shoulder was similarly destroyed.

"How…" asked pitifully the fallen vampire.

"Simple, creature… I am the Wrath of the Eye of Ra. My claws are his rays."

She smiled as she dodged another attack, coming from another vampire. Exactly as she had hoped, the few remaining creatures were trying to swarm her. Her moves were like a dance as she played with them, destroying them little by little while fueling their anger and lust for her blood, making sure none would even think about fleeing.

Suddenly, one of the oldest vampires present stopped.

"What's that… brimstone?" he said, sniffing around.

"Indeed," replied a seductive voice as flames engulfed the few still standing vampires.

Jessica looked at the shape that detached itself in the hellfire storm. In many ways he looked a lot more like the quintessential romantic vampire than the brutes she was facing. He was astonishingly beautiful in an almost feminine way, clad in black velvet and white silk, black curly hair cascading on his shoulders, a silver-pommeled ebony cane in his right hand. The part of her that was Bast however knew he was no vampire. He was far more dangerous, as this demon knew how to fan the fires of desire, no matter how unholy, as well as more physical flames.

"Belial…" she said as the mystical flames died out, having burnt nothing else than the vampires

"My dear lady Bast… I hope you will pardon my intrusion on your culling grounds… but her Majesty Satan has been very clear. Our house, our town must be cleansed of this filth before dawn," said the demon with an elegant bow, a mocking smile on his lips.

The cat goddess pouted.

"I was just posing as bait to draw them out… It would all have been finished in a few minutes. Weren't you supposed to team up with Bifrons by the way?"

"I was but she left to cater to another task at the behest of her Majesty… so I came to see if the heavenly host needed the help of this humble demon."

Jessica rolled her eyes. If there was a quality Belial never possessed it was certainly humility. She wondered who he had been two days before, who could have attracted the Prince of Flames.

"Out of curiosity…"

"My human name is Maximilian Dillon… and to answer your other unsaid question, I have many layers, Mrs. Harris."

_- Harris House, at the same time -_

Xander averted his gaze. Heimdall knew about Belial. He was… old, of the same generation as Hild and Odin, the generation that decided to steer mammal evolution to create a sentient species genetically compatible with their own, seven million years ago.

_Or, in other words, to create man in their image…_

He remembered the history lessons Heimdall had gone through, all those events that had been alluded to in other books. How that big project brought the two people together, before tearing them apart when they disagreed on how to implement it. Belial had been in the thick of that war, as Hild's right hand man. In present-day Niflheim, he represented a political movement who thought humanity needed to loosen up and get rid of repressive moral systems.

Suddenly, it hit him and he staggered. Even with seeing people with blue and red marks all day, he hadn't fully realized until now. Half of Sunnydale's people were gods, the other half demons. All forty thousand and something of them and that meant potentially hundreds of first class licenses on both sides.

_Sure, with Yggdrasil reduced to the most basic level, we're limited but compared to vampires... _

He turned his gaze back to the cemetery, looking for his father.

_- Restfield Cemetery, at the same time -_

Her name was Jane and she was dead. She had died from a vampire attack three weeks ago and haunted the cemetery since then. She wasn't exactly sure why she had stayed behind, maybe it was her worry for her children. But she hadn't managed to find her way out of the cemetery. She didn't know where to find them.

What she had learnt however was that many horrors lurked in the night and too many in this very cemetery. Even a ghost like her wasn't safe. But, yesterday evening, during Halloween, something had changed. She didn't know what, but she was sure it was important. She was suddenly brought out of her brooding by a bark.

She turned her ghostly head, her eyes falling on a black dog. She thought he was cute as sat near her. He looked like a cross between a Doberman and a coyote.

"You can see me?" she asked while she crouched to stroke his fur.

"He can see you," replied a strange voice as a man advanced near the ghost, a man with a black dog head and dressed in a white linen suit, a tan trench coat resting on his shoulders.

"You're… that Egyptian god… but… it's time to go?"

"Yes, I am Anubis… And you?"

"Jane… Jane Stansfield."

"Why are you staying in that cemetery, Jane?"

"I… My children. I'm not sure if they are safe."

"A noble thought… my wife will be able to help you. Finding lost kittens is one of her specialties."

He let out a short howl that was soon answered by soft steps. Jane then saw her, a cat-headed woman busy removing some dust from her clothes.

"Yes, husband?"

"Can you tell us if Jane's children are still in town, dear?"

"Sure, give me a minute."

"I leave you in my wife's care. There are other ghosts in these crypts I need to see."

"Wait! Well you're… but they're… they're not ghosts, they're… I don't know what to call them but they're evil. They look for vampire victims and feed on their soul before they can leave."

"Then it is even more important for me to see them," he said, nodding, as more dogs formed out of the darkness, gathering in a hunting pack.

Jane watched as a staff of pure darkness coalesced in the god's right hand.

"It will be all right," said the cat-headed woman. "Your kittens are still with your husband. Come with me and you will be able to say goodbye."

The ghost nodded, as, from the crypts, a mix of canine growls and damned screams started to rise.

_- Harris House, at the same time -_

"Anubis…" said Xander. "Dad is Anubis. I understand better why the Allfather asked him to clean Restfield."

He looked at the shish kebab dish and took a marker to complete the heating spell. He copied the last rune that his mother had drawn on a sticky note stuck on the dish. He felt a small rush of magic and a wonderful smell filled the kitchen.

He sat to eat, trying to remember what he knew, or rather what Heimdall about the two Egyptian gods. The first thing was that the different 'pantheons' were in fact the various clans of Asgard. Each of them had worked more closely with a given human civilization, the gods influencing the humans.

_But also the opposite… they… we adopted traits of their cultures as time passed. _

The humans often didn't get the relations in a given pantheon completely right. The place Niflheim demons took was also variable and… removed from truth. For example, the Babylonians mixed gods and demons in their pantheon which in turn had made the godly and demonic clans in charge of that area have more relaxed relations.

There was an exception for both sides on the matter of the Allfather and Satan. In their case, they just had a different name for every culture. Odin was generally either a Sky God or a Creator God, using names like Izanagi, Amun, Ouranos, Viracocha or Brahma. Hild was often an Earth or Mother goddess or an Underworld goddess if Heaven won the public relations battle in that area. She had gone by names like Gaia, Shakti, Izanami, Tiamat or Asherah.

_Gaia? How could she… yeah I remember. That's from before the divorce and… humans too often forget that Mother Nature is… harsh._

Regarding Bast and Anubis, he remembered only vague things. Contrarily to Egyptian mythology – and being cat and dog – the two were effectively happily married though he wasn't sure if… He remembered something about a party in Venice so they probably married long after the fall of the last pharaohs. He also knew one thing: they cared about their children. It was maybe this last thing that was the scariest to him, a change he didn't know how to cope with.

He finished the dish, washed it and took the phone. He needed to speak with someone about it.

_- Rosenberg house, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 18:22 -_

Willow sighed of contentment as she luxuriated in a hot bath. Before Halloween, she was rather the kind to go for quick showers but this was now a thing she needed for purification purposes.

_And Urd being the… sensual woman she is…_

She had spent a good part of her school day feeling the gazes on her new body. Without Urd's memories, she would probably have been scared about it but thanks to what she had integrated of the elder Norn, and maybe the feelings coming from her demon part, it had just felt great to feel them lusting after her.

"It will probably become annoying in a while but for now…"

She thought about the things she had witnessed during the day. Buffy's hunch about the only ones truly realizing that things were not normal seemed to be a simplification. A constant they had noticed by looking at the teachers was that the adults seemed to have more 'memory leftovers' than the children. All in all, most teenagers had remained teenagers despite having merged with gods or demons who counted their age in millennia.

That didn't mean that some personalities didn't evolve spectacularly. There was her own example of course. Two days ago, she would have been embarrassed to death of the flirtatious way she had behaved today.

_Instead of, let's be honest, almost getting off on it. Thankfully Urd is just a big tease and not a complete slut like… some other goddesses. _

She took her smartphone as it started to ring.

"U… Willow Rosenberg. Hello, Xander."

She listened for a while.

"Bast is nice… Well of course she can be a little catty at times but that's just normal, with her having a cat head a lot of time. But if her influence on your Mom is anything like the one Urd has on me, you will be fine… you saw her play with a vampire in 'cat and mouse mode'? Funny but again no big deal. You… true Heimdall is too young to remember the Atlantean war and what Bast did… just think that your Mom is now a retired Green Beret colonel and you'll be all right… that's scary? I will tell you what's scary. Sure, your parents have changed, but that's for the better. Mine were in Istanbul for the ICEEPSY and they are now in Jerusalem to meet some… yes Xander that's an acronym. It stands for… it's a conference on psychology. The point is that yours are already in the 'joke' while mine are still mortals… and if Mom starts to complain about me 'going through a phase' when she comes back, I don't know how long I will be able to restrain myself… so yes, my advice is to enjoy it. See you tomorrow at school, Xander. Bye."

She closed the phone and luxuriated a while longer in the water.

_I shouldn't have lashed at him but he has to grow up… guess I'm a little jealous too… Bast and Anubis are really nice people._

Her thoughts wandered to Urd's family. Should she try to consider the people who 'inherited' them as such? Her gaze fell on the surface of the bath's water and on the bubbles suddenly appearing on it. Rising, she put a hand in the small whirlpool at the center of the phenomenon, feeling something.

"Of course, she had to get stuck mid… here!"

She pulled as she stood, drawing something, or rather someone, out of the wormhole that had opened in her bath. Immediately, the small sobbing shape latched to her.

"Neechan!"

It was girl or rather a goddess that looked something like ten, maybe twelve years old, all covered in grime and wearing rags. Instinctively, Willow hugged her.

"It's all right, Skuld."

"Alice, my name is… I… I don't know anymore… I'm so afraid, neechan!"

Willow used a tiny spark of her magic to lessen gravity around the child, making her easier to lift as she stepped out of her bath. A glance and her bathrobe as well as towels floated behind her as she got the little goddess down to the kitchen. A few hand gestures and ingredients and appliances got to work to make some hot cocoa.

The teenage goddess sat her 'little sister' on the kitchen's counter and put her bathrobe on. The girl looked like Skuld but not completely, in the same way that she looked like Urd herself. She had fair skin, dark brown hair and eyes and was currently wearing… it wasn't really rags but rather clothes that had been fashionable but put through a lot of tear and wear very recently. She was also awfully thin like if… yes she had partially cicatrized wounds on her neck.

"So tell me what happened," said Willow as she gave her a mug of cocoa.

"My parents and I… we stopped at the motel because we still had to drive a long time before we arrived at the place for Dad's new job. We were living in San Francisco and were going to Houston… Dad's wanted to keep to the coast so that we could stop from time to time. Then… the monster came. He… he killed them and took me in a warehouse, told me he would keep me as a bite for a while…"

She sobbed again and Willow hugged her back. Sadly, her story was all too common in the old Sunnydale.

"Then yesterday… I think it was Halloween. I was so cold and weak but the blue sparks… and then Skuld, she… she was pissed and used something she called napalm bombs on him… after that I was too tired. I slept the whole day then I told the water to take me to my family…"

"And your spell found me… All right, I will show you the bathroom so that you can wash a little. No offence, little sis, but you stink. While you take a bath, I'll make us something to eat. Okay?"

"Okay… Urd."

She led her back to the bathroom and used another spell to purify and re-heat the water of her own bath.

"I'll let the door open. Just call if you need something."

The girl nodded as she started to strip. Willow got out, thinking that some of her old clothes should fit the child well enough for tonight. As she started to make some pasta for them both, she took her phone, selecting hesitantly the number among her contacts.

_Relax… it's still Mrs. Summers…_

_- Summers house, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 18:49 -_

"Keep her with you for the night, daughter," said Joyce on the phone. "I will email you Belldandy's address… I don't think she has a phone yet but I'll have one of my vassals fix that tomorrow. Don't be surprised about one thing though, Spike will be there but he is converted… as Loki," she added with a smirk. "Language, daughter of mine… about the vampire who did that? Wonderful! I knew Skuld had it in her!" she said with a laugh. "I'll see you tomorrow, sleep well daughter. I love you."

"That was Willow?" asked Buffy.

"Yes, Skuld appeared in her house. A vampire killed her parents before Halloween and kept her as a toy."

"Where?" asked the Slayer, dead serious.

"Warehouse district, but he's already dusted. Skuld used napalm bombs."

Buffy hesitated between approving Skuld's ruthlessness and snorting of disgust. Thanks to Mara, she had enough memories about Vietnam War to know exactly how it looked when someone burnt that way.

"I'm going to check anyway, if you don't mind."

"Not at all, Buffy… I think you need some stress relief," said Joyce with a playful smirk. "At this hour of the night, Bifrons should be readying to wipe out the last nest under the old Hamco warehouse…"

"Thanks, Mom," said Buffy, not wanting to delve too much on the sheer unreality of their conversation.

She concentrated, finding the trigger among Mara's memories. Reality faded as she disappeared in a puff of fire and brimstone.

_- Warehouse district, Tuesday 1 November 2011, 18:58 -_

Buffy materialized in an alley where a nerdy, mousy woman with glasses and demon marks was busy typing on a computer.

"Hey, Bif…"

"Mara," replied the nerdy girl. "I'm a little occupied here."

"I came to give a hand… I need to deal some violence…"

The woman chuckled.

"How come that you talk like Baal, Mara? Is it because of the Slayer?"

"You heard about it?"

"Some of the vampires I purged recently were talkative, not that it saved them. Anyway I got enough data to fulfill Satan's orders so… be my guest."

Buffy could feel the vampires below. She may never had gotten the hang of her Slaydar but Mara's mystical senses were a finely tuned weapon. Taking her favorite stake, she got down, resisting Mara's 'common sense' that whispered her some nifty flame spells to flush their rathole.

The first vampires soon came, a whole dozen of them. She started to move, finding relief in the familiarity of that dance. A step, a dodge and the stake found its way to a heart, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake, a parry to let deflect a kick and a swift elbow strike to break a leg. It just felt cathartic to her. Yet, it was different. She hadn't really felt an urge to patrol and Slay like she used to. As Mara had said, the beast had been tamed and changed.

Her stake had been struck out of her hand and she cursed her inattention. She switched to pure hand-to-hand, looking on how she could retrieve her stake. Suddenly, a familiar man with a black coat appeared near her, covering her back.

"Buffy… are you still you?" said the man while he handed her a stake.

"Angel, that's a difficult question," she said while staking another vampire. "Let's dust them first."

The former vampire with a soul nodded as he prepared to continue the fight. Buffy pouted. Now all she wanted was to finish that fight as soon as possible.

"Flames of Muspelheim, winds of Niflheim, come to do my bidding," said Buffy as she dodged attacks. "Unleash your fury upon my enemies!"

Reacting to one of the alien memories that haunted his soul since Halloween, Angel threw himself on the ground, just in time to dodge the fire cyclone growing around Buffy. The few remaining vampires screamed as they were swept in the air by the wind, only to be impaled and destroyed by the many fire lances dancing in the storm. Angel looked at Buffy who stood, he arms raised over her head, in the eye of the cyclone, a cruel smirk on her lips.

"Maybe… I should have done that first," said the Slayer as the hellstorm died around her. "It has its own fun."

"Buffy… you…"

"I'm still me… mostly, Angel, but I'm also Mara now. And you, who's the other guy in your head now?"

"I'm not sure… I think he had a hard time getting rid of my demon and the soul curse is probably not helping. Still, I get those urges to plan heists and send a card in advance like Arsène Lupin…"

"No need to say more," said the teenager, smiling. "That's Valefor for you. Mara often worked with him when she operated in Europe. I know it's strange but… we have to make with."

"I saw your mother earlier today… she's scary to a point I never thought possible…"

"She's probably the scariest person on the planet, that's for sure, but she'll care for us all the same. You should come with me, so that we can get someone to check that curse of yours."

He took her hand as they dissolved in flames.


	5. November 2 (part I)

_Author notes: World-building is for me an important phase when planning a crossover. You find yourself wondering about things like: "okay, I have this organization from universe A. What changes should I do to canon so that they fit seamlessly? Should I tweak their origin story, maybe expand on the areas never covered in canon? What do they know and how did they interact in the past with the factions of the universe B?" In other words, this is all about making them a fitting part of the merged universe, one that feels like it had always been there. _

_Another point is that I chose to interpret something about a certain Norse god in a certain way. This is my take on it for this story, not a truth._

_Thanks to Azmarie, Computerfreak CK, Mr Aakmr, Mr Pumblechook, f321, mycroft 216, nadirjohn and unknown1124 for marking this story as a favorite as well as to all the people who spent time reviewing it.  
_

_**Rickmer: **you will see some replies to your interrogations in your chapter. The problems you pointed are definitely something I will address _

**_Chargone: _**_I think this chapter will answer your question_

_- Rosenberg House, Wednesday 2 November 2011, 06:30 -_

Willow woke up and looked at the small shape cuddled against her. She was really cute like this, asleep, her face free of that sadness that had wracked her the night before.

_Skuld… my little sister. I remember so fondly our fights for the remote, my plans to get Keiichi and Belldandy finally act as lovers conflicting with your own to keep things 'non-perverted' between them and so many other things. It doesn't matter that those are not really my memories or yours. You're my sister._

She got up delicately, taking great care not to wake her up. She took her laptop and went down to the living room. She first sent an email to the high school secretary to explain that she had to skip today due to a family emergency.

"Let's see my inbox… reply from Mo… Mrs. Summers, easier to think of her like that for now. Belldandy's address… Living with Loki… if Frigga's here, she's gonna have a heart attack."

Willow remembered some of Urd's adventures with her half-brother Thor and their friend Loki. She went along rather well with the latter. Loki was a half-demon like her so they understood each other. Then Mr. Perfect came into play and things went down.

_Balder… how much Urd hated him… self-righteous jerk who thought any trace of 'uncleanness' should be removed from Asgard, half-bloods like me removed from any access to Yggdrasil or goddess license if not cast out… If Loki hadn't… Urd's patience for her little brother was wearing thin. She more reacted to how Loki used Hoder and disregarded the demon that died at the same time because of the doublet system than to the act itself… _

After Balder's death, the Allfather had not been the same, losing himself in his work and too often forgetting to be just 'Daddy' to the Norns and their siblings.

"…Morning," said Skuld as she reached the living room.

"Good morning, Skuld… or do you prefer if I call you Alice?"

"No… easier to just be Skuld for now, Urd," said the girl, shaking her head. "Easier to forget…"

"You don't have… family left? I mean: human relatives?"

"My grandfather in Oregon but… what will he say if I do that? He already thinks that computers are Satan's work."

She reached behind her back and pulled a tube-covered sphere the size of a tennis ball. Willow took it delicately as the child started to shake and laid it on the table. She hugged the girl that became her little sister as she cried.

"I… know," said the girl, trying to dry her tears, "my parents, my human parents, they would want me to be happy to be alive but…"

"It's all right to be sad, little sister. Just remember that I am there for you and Belldandy will too."

"If she's here… why didn't the water…"

"Dunno. I like to think that you like me more. Or maybe it was just because I was in my bath at that moment."

"Maybe… you're using Linux?" she asked while looking at Willow's laptop.

"It's a custom, I constructed it from selected spare parts and I use a tweaked Linux system for it," replied the teenager, recognizing Skuld's will to change the subject. "Before I became Urd, I was already a lot into computers."

"Hmm… should have something in here," said the child as her hand retrieved a palm-sized cube from the non-space behind her back.

Willow recognized the thing. It was the Asgardian equivalent of a flash drive, this one tweaked to also accept USB cables.

"Your infamous Skuld OS?"

"Eh! It works perfectly well. It's not my fault Keiichi's computer is too backwards to handle…"

"Even a teraflop computer would be hard-pressed to manage your OS… We'll see what we can do with the spare parts I still have but later. We have a lot of things to do today."

"We're seeing Belldandy?" she asked, a smile fighting to appear on her lips.

"Yes we do. We also have to try to retrieve your things from the motel. Also, there is one thing. You will see demons in town… I mean our demons, probably Mara and Hild."

The kid paled at that.

"You'll have to remember that they're… just like us, humans that got changed. We have a truce and we're all working to get rid of monsters like the one you napalmed."

"But…" she started, obviously thinking hard and fast. "Okay, I'll make an effort."

"Good. Now come help me make us some breakfast."

_- 1630 Revello Drive, Wednesday 2 November 2011, 06:50 -_

Dawn was looking at her reflection in the bathroom's mirror. Her fingers followed the curve of her horns, searching for irregularities. She frowned a little and took a file. With a few precise strikes, she removed the offending bump while making sure not to damage the pattern of her horn's ridges in that area.

"Perfect," she said with a smile as she took a pose in front of the mirror.

Her clothes were still aiming for that 'gothic lolita' feeling she had been cultivating for a year. Since Halloween, there was just less black and more dark red. She knew that Pam Akumachi, 'the other girl in her head', would have dressed differently but this was something of her old self she had decided to keep.

She giggled at her reflection, wondering what some of her friends from Los Angeles would think. Sure, she had made some new ones since she came to live in Sunnydale last summer, friendships that were now seriously strengthened by the fact Kit and Amanda were also Raim and Vine, Pam Akumachi's best friends. Still, she missed the old gang of the literary club in her former school. She was still chatting with them online but it wasn't the same.

_And now I have to mind what I tell them…_

Her old friends had been the ones to induce her into the whole Goth movement after they had spent some hours discussing their mutual dislike of the Twilight Saga and pointed thoroughly why it wasn't Gothic. She even had a t-shirt stating that 'Real vampires don't sparkle' somewhere but she hadn't worn it for a good while. Not since the parent-teacher night as a matter of fact, not since she had understood that the people that attacked Sunnydale High that night had not been 'a gang on PCP' but real vampires. Since that moment, she had understood what was eating her sister, what she was fighting night after night.

_But now, everything is different… I am a creature of the night now. It has been a hell of a start for my freshman year in high school… pun intended. _

Horns, pointed ears, scarlet eyes burning with unholy fire and canines that were cute little fangs, all surrounded by a perfect alabaster skin and dark red hair that somehow reminded her of the Balrog's flames. This was the face the mirror was sending her back. She tried to look for either her old human self or Pam Akumachi's cheerful face but the first was already dimming in her memory, washed away by the hellfire flowing through her veins. As for the second…

"Mom… do you think I am… eviler than Pam?"

Dawn turned her head to look at her mother. The teen demoness had felt her energy approaching rather than heard her coming. Again, she tried to remember the image of Joyce Summers and pit it against the one of the platinum blonde, tan-skinned woman leaning on the bathroom door's frame. She tried to tell herself that her Mom would never dress so provocatively, that she would have bothered with wearing a shirt and a bra under the jacket of her power suit. But the memory of the human Joyce Summers was dimming too, replaced by the new reality they had both eagerly accepted.

"I don't know much about Pam as I only have the few memories of Hild when she met her during Halloween night. She seemed to be a sweet girl wanting for people to be friends."

"Isn't that… naïve?"

"It is," said Joyce with a sad smile, "particularly for a Shedu. But, being a Shedu myself, I also respect her immensely. She didn't care about fitting in. She held to the values she had chosen for herself despite what other thought. Finally, she came on top and changed the rules."

"And… if she had been wrong? What if what she built… hadn't worked?"

"Then others with different ideas would have risen and replaced her. You are my daughter and are thus entitled to some privileges but neither Buffy, Urd nor you will inherit my throne simply because of this. If you are interested in following in my steps, you will have to conquer it and then prove every day that you are worthy of it."

"But… I mean Hild surely did but you…"

"Elections are… facultative for us. One cannot take Satan's throne without the people's agreement but seizing it by force, guile or simply by… being the first on it is fully acceptable. If the people don't rebel… well we tend to consider they are agreeing. I took command during Halloween and most Shedim probably decided to play safe, thinking 'she has Hild's memories and powers: she should be fit for now'. The thing is that every day is cementing my position a little more and I already have all my… potential rivals under watch. Of course, they know it and they know that I will crush them if they try anything. So they are bidding their time, waiting for me to make a misstep."

Dawn looked back in the mirror, at their joined reflection as her Mom was now standing behind her, hands on her shoulders. There was a hardness in her mother's face. From what she remembered, it had sometimes been here, particularly during the divorce, but never with such intensity. Dawn knew that her 'new and improved' Mom could do terrible things without the slightest remorse.

_And that I will soon be able to… Mom will make sure of it and it will be because she loves us and wants us to be able to protect ourselves… _

_- 1603 Revello Drive, Wednesday 2 November 2011, CHECK 07:30 -_

_A pity I don't have more… I know: this afternoon after class, Kit will certainly be up for it. _

For the first morning since the start of school year, she didn't have to take the bus. She had simply exited the house, spread her wings and taken flight.

"I'm flying in the sky, just flying in the sky. What a glorious feelin' I'm happy again…" she sung with a grin, skewing just a little Gene Kelly's words.

It was truly glorious to her, to glide freely, moving faster than the cars in the streets. She felt the wind on the skin membranes of her wings though these didn't really flap. While her wingspan was honorable, it was nowhere near enough to allow her to fly in a 'natural' way given her mass and muscle power. The trick, one she remembered from the lessons Raim and Vine – Kit and Amanda's devil alter egos – had given to Pam, was that devil wings had more to do with sci-fi concepts like gravity redirection than with the ones of birds.

"… and I'm ready for love!"

She started her descent on the high school while, at her side, her familiar rolled his eyes.

"Mistress…"

"Yes, Zu?"

"You will really try to… woo her?"

"Of course!" said Dawn, not able to fully prevent the blush rising on her cheeks. "I mean… it's Linfa!"

She landed near the entrance, remembering what their homeroom teacher had told them the day before. While there was still a lot of work to do, they had already done some amendments to the school rules to take into account the student's 'improved mobility'. In practice, it meant no flying or teleporting on school grounds, except for emergencies or during some special courses like PE.

"And you are Pam?" asked the lion-headed eagle.

Dawn stopped, lowering her head as she felt doubt in her heart.

"I won't know if it works until I try, Zu."

"I see you made your mind up… I'll spend the day resting in your pendant if you don't mind. I don't want to risk seeing that crazy girl."

The familiar dematerialized and Dawn entered the building, heading for her locker. She wondered if Zu had meant Linfa but then remembered there might also be another possibility. In Pam's world, a devil girl called Camio had been completely smitten with him.

_A thought for later. Now, the objective is Linfa. _

From what she had uncovered the day before, she was a freshman in Sunnydale High like her and her human name was Liberty Kendall. Her human self was a problem because of their respective big sisters. Buffy and Harmony Kendall could not stand each other and from the information Dawn had gathered Halloween had potentially made things worse. Not only had Harmony merged with Lind, a Valkyrie that seemed just as amenable as General Patton but their parents were even worse. If Susanoo's intel was correct, Linfa's mom was none other than the commander of the Valkyrie Corps: Mikael. She would probably have something to say about their little angel hanging out with Satan's daughter.

_Though… remember what Susanoo told me about her Dad. Gabriel is the Allfather's Jim Phelps and has a very pragmatic view on things. _

_- Joyce's office, Wednesday 2 November 2011, 08:27 -_

Joyce raised her eyes from the report she was reading and looked at the woman sitting in front of her. The human that person had been was unfamiliar to her, some biology postdoc at the UC Sunnydale from what she had been told. However, she was very familiar with another side of that woman, the one that went with the demon marks adorning her guest's face.

"So, we have a problem," said Satan.

"It depends of how you look at it," replied the guest while scratching the animal sitting next to her chair behind the ears.

Joyce had to admit that for the part of her that was Hild, the animal in question was normal, a common household pet… in Niflheim.

"What's her name?" she asked with a smile.

"Belle, after the one in the novel. I just couldn't resist."

Joyce looked in the animal's eyes. All three pairs of them, each placed on a different head, or even four if you counted the ones on the viper head at the end of the animal's tail. Belle had otherwise retained most of her traits as a Great Pyrenees and actually managed to look cute.

_Or maybe my new and improved brain has skewed my sense of aesthetics…_

She saw the Cerberus cower before her gaze. Joyce got her eyes back on report. She knew that the animal had enough magical senses to feel her power and was just acknowledging her dominance over her. It was better to ignore the 'dog' before the canine did something embarrassing. She turned the pages, reaching something that looked vaguely like a weather pressure map of Sunnydale and frowned.

"Bifrons… these are all measures taken while you were looking for the vampire nests?"

"Yes. As the local breed has a different signature than the one we had in the other universe, it was easier to use a general scanning spell and filter afterwards."

Joyce didn't even need to read the conclusions. Thanks to Hild, she knew immediately what the measures meant. She typed a few commands on her Nidhogg terminal and looked at another graph.

"We have underestimated the corrupting effect of the Hellmouth. We are immune to it but the local fauna and flora are not so lucky... I want you to coordinate with Malphas and Vapula on this and refine Nidhogg's radiation filters. I also want sensors posted outside of the city's barrier."

"The barrier will prevent radiations from leaking outside but…"

"But preventing things such as a mutated seed from being blown away is another matter," she concluded.

"As well as animals who will have the desire to wander. To give you a simple example, a filly born this morning in a farm belonging to a god family has wings and a blue coat… from what I was told, the family's kids named the future mare Rainbow Dash," added Bifrons with a bemused smile.

Joyce sighed as she leaned back in her chair. Pegasi were not just winged horses. They were creatures of elemental air and needed to roam freely in the sky to flourish.

"Which means the Celestial Tear the Elohim opened has a similar effect… who is in charge of that dossier on their side?"

"I don't think they have a task force yet… you know how bureaucratic they can be. Raphael contacted me directly and I suppose he will be put in charge once things have gone through 'the proper channels'," replied Bifrons, making air quotes while saying the end of her sentence.

Satan nodded. Hell functioned more or less like a corporation with Satan as CEO. It was often ruthless and had little patience for slackers. The quick efficiency was however countered by a difficulty to keep plans with no short-term results going on. At the other end of the spectrum, Heaven was pretty much as Ancient China had envisioned it: a bureaucracy with a plethora of ministries that often fell victim to their own inertia.

Joyce had another look at the woman petting her three-headed dog. From what she remembered, Bifrons was one Hild's trusted people, maybe even one of the few she could call a friend. Initially a patron of necromancers, she had diversified her activities during the Renaissance and ended being the muse for all the wannabes Frankenstein, Moreau et al.

_But I also remember other things… I remember her fondness for chocolate and some practical jokes that made Hild laugh a lot… like that day where she replaced all the bodies in a med school's morgue with zombies programmed to dance on the music of Thriller. _

She had a small smile as she remembered the incident. Athena's face had probably been one of the funniest things, particularly with Bifrons sending paramedics straight to the goddess with a false report regarding a stuck-up lady about to have a stroke.

_Note to self: if I un-cat Ethan Rayne… presenting them might either be a match made… in hell or the source of many headaches to come. _

"You know," said Bifrons. "This contamination will solve one of our big problems. The kids will want familiars."

Joyce frowned. While Hild never had one, many Shedim liked to have a familiar. There was however a slight problem with that. Modern familiars were advanced golems, spiritual creatures that latched on their master's soul and created a symbiotic link with them, normally deriving its personality from its host's soul. The Elohim used a similar technology to create their guardian angels.

_But there is an older way: contracting an independent magical creature. This is the way Dawn – or rather Pam – used to bind Zu. _

This was another reminder that there were currently two cultures of Shedim living side by side and that the same went for the Elohim. It wasn't too alien as the Devils and Angels of Pam Akumachi's world were quite similar to what Hild and Odin's people had been in the past.

"The Elohim won't like it. Abandoning contracted familiars was one of the concessions we did when signing Ophir's Treaty. It will also be years before we can put together the facilities to create artificial familiar eggs, and so are they with guardian angels."

"Except the old treaties don't really apply to us as we are not the ones that lived in the other worlds… even if we tend to forget it."

"True… something else to renegotiate. Last point: do you have any data on human corruption?"

"Not for the Hellmouth but by comparison to some of 'my' old research, it will be slower. Sentient souls just don't resonate the same."

There was a discrete knock on the office's door and Joyce made a distracted hand wave, toward it, sending just enough magic to open it while she perused once again the data assembled by Bifrons. Just as expected, she felt the sweet scent of coffee but then realized the aura of the person bringing it was not the one of her secretary.

"Any reason you are playing butler, Belial?" she asked as the demon prince poured cups.

"You know that I am always eager to please ladies, sister dear."

Sister… the word rolled in her mind, reminding her of the new family links Halloween had spun. Her own with Willow because they were Hild and Urd, one between Willow and the girl that became Skuld and probably many others in town.

_Like the fact Hild has a little brother called Belial… though, what are a few centuries of difference when one counts her age in millions of years?_

Yet, there was something else. She knew Belial intimately, biblically even. Had they not been so busy lately, she would probably have closed the door and told him not to please but to pleasure her and Bifrons.

"But I know that smile, Belial… to quote my daughter: what's the what?"

"You are right, we have a problem, one that will require our attention today but for which it is better not to rush blindly. A human escaped the conversion during Halloween night."

_St. Michael Church, Sunnydale, Wednesday 2 November 2011, 8:40 -_

Milos Zeman was praying, kneeling before the altar of his church. He knew he had sinned many times and that he was probably not worthy of wearing the habit of a catholic priest. Too often he had watched what happened in Sunnydale without acting while he could have tried to fight and maybe gain some measure of redemption through martyrdom.

_But there were orders…_

Once again, he wondered if his superiors in Rome were really accomplishing God's will, if they had not become too jaded to the people's suffering in their fight against the forces of darkness. But with Halloween, something changed. He got up and went to the entrance of the church, looking at the street.

It was a nice, sunny day in Sunnydale and the town looked very much like the quiet Californian city it was supposed to be to the ignorant one. Even to him, it seemed that the usual aura of malevolence that permeated the place had disappeared, which had make him wonder, at first, if the Hellmouth had not gone fully dormant. Then, he had started to notice things.

On the opposite side of the street, a young couple was doing a promenade with their baby in a stroller. He knew them well. He had baptized their child a few weeks ago. They waved to him and he waved back, forcing himself to act normally, as if he did not see the red marks on their faces, their horns and tails and did not feel the demonic power rolling out of them.

He took a step down the church's front stairs, feeling the spell descend on him, masking all the blue and red marks on the townspeople's faces, the horns and the tails. It was like in that old science fiction movie where the hero received sunglasses that allowed him to see past the illusion spun by the alien. He couldn't be sure as only the wards of his church protected him from the glamour but he was more and more certain that the whole town was affected… possessed.

He took the newspaper left by some delivery boy earlier and went back inside the church. Like the people's appearance, the newspaper was bewitched and would have looked nothing out of the ordinary… except inside of this church. The editorialist had signed a commentary on 'proper spellcasting classes' that would be introduced the following week and enjoined parents to teach their children to use their magic responsibly. He had signed it with the name Baalberith. Another article was an interview of Allan Finch, the Deputy Mayor, who reminded people to be wary of outsiders, both demons and mortals. His picture showed him as a blonde man with long hair… and a halo.

"They have to be a… new kind of demon… maybe… the Grigori angels of the book of Enoch?"

_- On the other side of the street, at the same time -_

Spike lighted himself a cigarette and smiled. What he was doing was quite simple. He was leaning against a car's hood and feeling the sun on his face. A sun that wasn't reducing him to a pile of ashes.

"I haven't seen you smile like this for a long while, Loki," said a voice near him.

He turned his head, thinking that one of Loki's oldest friends had kept his sense of humor by choosing someone looking a little like Christopher Walken. Despite everything, they had stayed such, as this man had been the only one to understand that Balder needed to be dealt with. While he had no proof, he was also almost certain that this man had been behind the unexplainable security failure that allowed Sygin to give the finger to the Valkyrie Corps and escape Heaven.

"A part of me hadn't seen the sun for a very long time, Gabriel."

"So have I heard… I suppose Drusilla is adapting well?"

The former vampire had a smile as he thought of his former sire, now his companion.

"Belldandy is the best thing that ever happened to her, Gabe. She's… it's like Bell allowed her to be as she should have been, if Angelus had not twisted her."

"Angelus… you know he is in the hospital?"

"How do you know?"

"He 'inherited' Valefor."

Spike scowled. Loki considered Valefor like an insufferable poseur even if he recognized the talent of the Thief Master.

"Bloody charming… that bloke never understood the best trick is the one where the victim doesn't realize she's been tricked… You're seeing the Old Man later today?"

"Yes, if only to tell him how the problem in that church has been handled. A message to pass?"

"Tell him I will treat his little girl right and make her an honest woman as soon as possible."

"I don't know if he will be pleased or horrified but I will tell him that. About that church…"

"I am handling that personally, Gabriel," said a voice behind them while its owner materialized in a torch of dark flames.

The archangel could not prevent a little shudder as her aura washed over him.

"You know I could go there and do it all Annunciation-style," replied Gabriel.

"But you know why it wouldn't work," said Joyce, her now usual bemused smile on her lips. "Wait for me here, boys."

They both watched her as she started to walk across the street, her high heels clacking on the asphalt.

"You know," said Gabriel, taking the smoke Spike handed him, "intellectually, I know that she's just like me, a human changed only two days ago. Yet…"

Spike snickered.

"Listen, mate. When she was a 'mere human', she chased me with a fire axe. Actually… I think she will be even scarier than Hild."

Gabriel took a second to think about it. It was true that Joyce Summers was different from Hild in many ways and he could now see some subtle differences. Hild would have made some snarky comment about how she was doing the gods a favor. When Joyce had said 'Wait for me here, boys', it had rather felt like 'Stay safe, Mom is taking care of everything'.

_And here it goes, _thought the archangel as he saw her knock at the church's door, which immediately made the gargoyles start to wail.

_St. Michael Church, Sunnydale, at the same time -_

Milos Zeman raised his head as he heard the gargoyles wail, their cries soon ending in a gargle as the church's door opened. He felt the wards tearing away like if they were tissue papers, shattering against the dark red light haloing the silhouette in the entrance. He had a look at the statues, shaking as he saw them cry tears of blood.

"Forgive me father, for I have sinned…," said the person in the entrance, the sound of her heels resonating as she progressed in the central alley.

He knew who had this voice. He had observed her many times because of who she was: Joyce Summers, the Slayer's mother and a good woman. But now… he turned to face her.

"You are the last human in Sunnydale, you know," she said. "The wards of this church were well designed, with their own cloaking field to prevent the demons from noticing them…"

He looked at her, seeing the changes in her, the arrogant stride, platinum blonde hair, burgundy eyes and dusky skin. Yet, despite the flaunted flesh, she did not look like some harlot. Her inhuman perfection rather made people want to worship her and the very ground she walked upon.

_Ô toi, le plus savant et le plus beau des anges, Dieu trahi par le sort et privé de louanges*…_he thought as Baudelaire's verses assaulted his mind.

"Indeed," replied Joyce, a smirk on her lips. "Though… let's not reopen the dispute on the gender of angels."

He raised his cross in front of him, knowing that his soul was bare before her, before Satan.

"I… I already reported to Rome."

"I know. That's how we were reminded about the loose end you represent. As you certainly noticed, we had a lot to do these last days…"

"This is not some remote place you can isolate from the world…"

"Very true… Arranging everything so that regular people like delivery men did not notice anything has been… a rush. Anyway… things are now under control. Can you look at the obituaries page?"

He turned the newspaper's pages. The obituaries were empty, only announcing some services for deaths that happened before Halloween. A day without any death was completely unheard of for this town.

"You…"

"Please, do you really think I would bother with lying to you? I can crush your will with a thought."

"It might be a game for you…"

"Hmm… yes it could be and She knows that I will have earned some fun next weekend but… I will only spend what I can spare of my Sunday on the beach with my three daughters… and have dinner with my ex-husband. But to get back to the point that made me visit you, I am here to tell you we consider you to be the Apostolic Nuncio for our fair city."

"You… you want to establish diplomatic relations with the Holy See?" he asked with disbelieving eyes.

"We do. I have no sympathy for the demon lords you are familiar with and I think this world could do without their menace. For this, we need allies and I have it on good authority that the Catholic Church still has soldiers around the world."

Milos felt his head spin. The Devil herself was offering an alliance against the demons. That… wasn't so unbelievable. All people knowing about the real demons also knew that they often warred among themselves.

_But if we help this one gain ascendancy on the others… _

"I… I will contact them but… what of the humans of this town?"

"What happened here was not decided by me… but by someone higher. I am who you believe I am, mostly, but I am also still Joyce and the same goes for all people in town. Go meet your parishioners, discuss with them and see for yourself if they have been damned or just changed. Do not be bothered too much by the empty seats in yesterday's service. You see, they don't need to believe in Her existence anymore… they know."

He looked at her, being remembered that, if the tradition was true, those eyes had seen the Lord's face.

"I grant you the gift to see beyond the veil we spun. I'll also have my ex-husband send someone to repair those wards…"

_- Across the street, at the same time -_

Gabriel sighed as he looked at the church. The gargoyles looked like if they had choked in their own blood. He took out his phone and sent a message to Allan Finch, asking him to send a team to repair the wards and purify things. He saw her walk out of the building and sing a cleansing spell. Good, things would be easier for them and they would make sure to include some bypasses in the new wards to prevent such issues in the future.

He knew why she had succeeded when his own chances would have been very small. The priest knew that something is wrong in that town. When facing Satan, he had good reasons to be wary but… she was just another demon and he could actually believe her to be somewhat honest. An attempt by him, going all messenger angel on him, would have been almost certainly considered a deception.

"I asked the Mayor's Office to send a repair team for his wards," he said as she neared them.

"Thank you, Gabriel," replied Joyce. "How is Heaven's Intelligence Service doing?"

"Still busy putting it back together but that's Athena's job. In the meantime… well I'm one of the few that know how to play fast and loose on our side."

"All right. Loki will be your contact on our end while Belial sets up our own services back together."

"Odin will probably try to convince you to create common institutions, maybe put back together the ones we had in Atlantis…"

Joyce shook her head.

"We don't have the two centuries it took to build it the first time. Maybe later but for now, our duality is actually a strength, as each side will be able to do things the other can't. For now… we're like Sparta and Athens during the Persian Wars: we have external threats to deal with in priority. We'll find solutions to our internal problems later."

"Understood," said both Spike and Gabriel.

"With that boys, I still have a lot to do. See you later!"

She waved them goodbye, smiling cheerfully as she dissolved into dark flames.

_- Sunnydale, Wednesday 2 November 2011, 9:17 -_

Drusilla answered the door and was greeted by a preteen girl who rushed to hug her while another, older girl waved her hello from behind. Of course, she recognized them. They were her sisters after all.

"Oh my… please do come in," said the former vampire.

"Nice place you have here, sister," said Willow.

"Thank you, but you know it was just one of those abandoned warehouses a few days ago… and I still need some genuine art to fill in some spaces. Please have a seat. I will make some tea."

Skuld reluctantly let her other big sister go to sit on the couch, next to Willow.

"The… other you is British, Belldandy?" asked Willow who was wondering about Drusilla's accent.

"Yes, though I traveled a lot since then… it's probably better to put things out in the open directly. I was a vampire before Halloween."

"But…" started Skuld, "how? I… your aura is Belldandy's?"

"I think I can guess," said Willow. "Skuld, you remember what happened when Hild replaced Belldandy's angel with that demonic familiar?"

"Yes, it was changed into… something else, not quite an angel but… Got it, the nasty vampire could not resist my beloved sister's power."

Drusilla stifled a giggle. It was so good to see them both.

"That's true," said the middle Norn, "Belldandy restored my soul, a little like what happened to Angel."

"You know him?"

"He sired the vampire me, long before his soul was forced back on him. He and my Spike are doing something on Hild's request."

"Spike being Loki?" asked Willow.

"Yes… It's not easy for the part of me that is Belldandy but I am less innocent than she is, Urd. I understand Loki's reasons even if I would have preferred for him to find another way to deal with Balder."

"I know this happened before I was born," said Skuld, "but… I remember Thor saying bad things about him, though never in Mom's hearing range."

"Contrarily to what we would like to believe, Skuld," said Drusilla, "we gods are not necessarily good. To speak frankly, your big brother was a jerk, the kind who thought that certain people were worth less than others just because of their ancestry or looks."

"Yeah," said Willow, "people like me."

"I'm not sure I understand," said Skuld, "but I remember one of our neighbors in San Francisco, I mean in my human life. He didn't like black people and once I saw him dressed in a white robe…"

"Hem," said Willow, scratching the back of her head, "yes, Balder was like that. Skuld, if Loki hadn't killed him, Urd would probably have done something and…"

"I know, you don't do subtle," said Skuld, taking a sip of tea.

"Anyway, we are going to have to learn to live together, both gods and demons," said Drusilla.

_- Abbazia di San Liberatore a Maiella, Abruzzo (Italy), Thursday 3 November 2011, 18:34 (GMT+1) -_

"Your Eminency… do you think that the Watchers already realized?" asked a man in black monastic robes to his superior.

The cardinal James Carmody, head of the secret order of the Knights of Saint Jude, was busy helping his people going through numerous occult books. Earlier in the day, two emails sent by their agent in Sunnydale had revealed a major power shift in town.

"It all depends if their man was possessed at the same time as the others… given that the Slayer's mother is concerned, it is possible that nothing was reported to them."

"Your Eminency, I think I have it," said a nun wearing a strange symbol on her white habit.

"Hmm… let me see this, Sister Lori…"

The cardinal put on cotton gloves and unrolled the old papyrus, reading quickly a text written in Greek.

"This is part of the Alexandria collection?" he asked.

"Yes," replied the nun. "The original is attributed to Manetho and probably in the Watchers' library now."

"Hmm… Caesar certainly wasn't an easy man but having his soldiers bringing back the content of the library to Rome secretly is just another proof of his genius. Yes… it's here: 'and I, Manetho, did under his orders research among the archives in sacred script of the Double House of Life of the Great Temple of Heliopolis to assemble the prophecies done by the Heretic King that were hidden when his city was destroyed…"

He switched to a lower part of the text.

"... and Akhenaten said that on the day of… Brother Luca, can you match that date with the Gregorian calendar, please?" asked the cardinal as the monk near him took down some notes with his style on his computer tablet, injecting the data in a software designed by another member of the order.

"This corresponds to the 31st of October 2011 your Eminency."

"Thank you brother…. During this night of transition, the gods will emerge once again from the Noun, led by Amun-Re, creator of the staff of life, and his beloved Astarte, so beautiful as she rises in the morning sky. Sublime is their power as they stand on Atum's Wound to accomplish Aten's will… Atum's Wound, where did we see that?"

"Here, in Paatenemehb's texts," said Sister Lori. "We think it's an Egyptian expression for a hellgate."

"Thank you… They will make the new Heliopolis their earthly capitol, allowing all men and women who dared to stand on Atum's Wound to be reborn and elevated as their new courts. Then the vision becomes unclear as they battle against Apophis and the Shining Ones… and that's all."

"Your Eminency… I thought the gods of mythology were either the Powers or the demons playing with humans…"

"This is different. According to the records coming from the Shadow Men, the demons known as the Old Ones 'lost their purchase on this reality' or, in other words, God decided to make place for Man, letting the angels known as the Powers in charge of… lower management."

"So this could be the Lord's will?"

"Luca… how many demon-related catastrophes did our order prevent in the last decade?"

"Too many," replied Sister Lori.

"Indeed. Even if the Watchers are fond to have the Slayer believe she's alone, the world has always been too vast for that. Us, the Watchers, the Yukikaze ninja clan, the Soldats and some other factions and independent demon hunters… most of us with only very limited support from the Powers while the other side has structures like Wolfram and Hart. I can suppose that He realized how bad it was down here. But that's only a theory… So we dispatch a team to Sunnydale and try to learn more."

* This a quote from Charles Baudelaire's famous poem 'Les Litanies de Satan'. It translates roughly as "O you wisest and fairest of angels, god betrayed by fate and deprived of praise"


End file.
